Full Moon Dreaming
By Musuko

The wan moon glowed through drifting clouds and lit a rectangle on the floor of my bedroom. I stared at the shape from beneath my sheet, eyes half open, half into sleep, half into what I thought was wakefulness. I knew afterwards that it couldn’t have been. I was fast asleep, because in that rectangle of moonlight, she stood.
	Her head turned, and the pale white light shone on the blue of her eyes. The stars gleamed in her mane. I opened my mouth, trying to speak, but I was mute. The word rolled in my head, trapped, unable to escape. Luna.
	It was definitely her. The surprise made me spin. Slowly, her head turned, and I saw her looking at me. Her mouth started to open, an exclamation of silent surprise. And then she was gone, and with her the room and everything else, and I was back in the thoughtless oblivion of sleep until my alarm brought me back to life in the warm sun of the morning.
	I could remember nothing more past that instant. The dream stayed with me when I woke. It was a fragment, just another one of those glimpses of imagination that the sleeping mind throws up. But the world felt fresher that day. I stepped out into sunshine, breakfast in my belly, a world at my toes, feeling alive. I thought, at the time, that a good night’s sleep was the medicine that had brought my good mood.

Her second visit came six days later. I couldn’t be sure why. What was special about that night?
	“Caroo,” she whispered, the voice in my ear. I startled awake.
	“Whuh?”
	“You do not want to sleep the whole day, do you?”
	I lifted my head. A weight pinned my legs from the knees down. She sat there, on her haunches, on top of my bedding. Her forehooves pinned down the sheet either side of my hips. Her head tilted, her smile greeting me like the sunshine that streamed through the window.
	“Wh...whuh?”
	She laughed, a hoof lifted up to her mouth. The happy sound made me shiver. I was dreaming. I knew I was dreaming.
	“If you will not wake,” she said, “then I will sleep with you.”
	The sheet wafted away like smoke with a wave of her hoof. I felt a stab of embarrassed alarm as my body was exposed to her, fur all ruffled, dignity preserved only by a comfy pair of boxers. But she settled down onto me, her head nuzzling in under my chin, her legs around my waist and chest. Her mane rippled above me, ever moving, deep with the infinite reaches of starry space. The sheet settled back over the both of us. She was warm. I never imagined she would be warm. I felt her breath on my neck. I felt her heart beating against my chest.
	I dared not move. I dared not speak. I wished I didn’t need to breathe. I had only ever known this feeling fleetingly, with partners who tried to help, who had real love and affection to give, but not the strength to weather what I had to go through. But those moments were only faint ghosts compared to this. I closed my eyes and tilted my muzzle down into her flowing mane. Soft, warm, without texture or presence, just the pure essence of sensation. I breathed in a scent I couldn’t place or describe. Finding confidence, I lifted my arms to cradle them around her, feeling those slender shoulders relax beneath my fingers, feeling her grip my sides and murmur a contented noise against my neck.
	The alarm woke me, and I reached over to press its button without thinking. In the confusion of emerging wakefulness I lay my paw back onto Luna’s shoulders, finding only empty air and my own chest. I sighed, but smiled. Just a dream. But...such a beautiful dream.
	I floated through the day. My old charm returned, as easy as it ever was. My coworkers lit up. My manager said she was happy to see I was back to my old self, patting my arm and smiling. Everything was easy and glowing again. And all through the day, my thoughts kept drifting back to my bed, to the warmth of her embrace.

I wanted to see her again, and more than just a passing glimpse or single embrace this time. I waited, impatiently, hoping for another night when the planets aligned or the stars were favourable or whatever it was that brought her into my mind so vivid and real.
	And then three days later, I heard her voice as I drifted to sleep.
	“Do you really need me again so soon?” she said, somewhere close.
	“Yes,” I whispered, a smile erupting on my muzzle, with me powerless to prevent it. I opened my eyes.
	She looked down at me, sat on my knees again. The room was different, though. It was no-longer mine, although it felt like home. I lay in silky sheets that felt like they weighed nothing. The walls were draped with more sheets. At least, I thought they were walls. I could see stars beyond, glittering like Luna’s mane. A white glow came from somewhere. I knew without knowing that it was moonlight. And she was radiant in it.
	“Are you...okay?” she said.
	“I am now.”
	I reached for her hoof, lifting it up from the sheets and bringing it to my lips. She giggled shyly as I kissed it.
	“What are you doing?” she said.
	“Kissing your hoof.”
	“You are very strange.”
	So I did it again, and she watched, fascinated by what I was doing. I felt dizzy, but it was a good feeling. I still felt that I knew this was a dream. I knew that when I woke, I would marvel again at the power of my imagination, at the strength of mind needed to make this all feel so real. I gave a gentle tug to her hoof and drew her without protest down into another embrace.
	“It is nice, though,” she said. I felt a nudge against my lips. She had her hoof held against them, and I saw her blushing, her eyes avoiding me. “You may do it again.”
	I kissed again, touching my lips to the underside of the offered hoof. She giggled again. Driven by the unignorable command of curiosity, I touched the tip of my tongue against the smooth, hard surface and gave it a little wiggle. She twitched as if shocked and yanked her hoof away, yelping with a sound that was almost a squeak. She stared at me, alarmed, then lifted her hoof to inspect it.
	“I’m s-sorry,” I said. My heart was pounding. I didn’t know what to do. She seemed offended maybe? Scared away? I felt so stupid. This was such a beautiful dream and I had to go and wreck it by being weird! “I didn’t mean to-”
	She was gone, wiped from my mind in an instant. The sheets faded away. I saw a glimpse of grey rock, desolate and empty, beneath a black sky and icy sun. And then nothing, a floating oblivion of sleep that ended in an instant with the glow of the dawn and the buzzing of my alarm clock.
	I wandered through the following week in a daze. I was aware of myself enough to spot the looks of sympathy I got from my colleagues. They were the same looks I had seen them wear back when the old me first fell under the cloud. I tried to be cheerful for them, but all I could think of was Luna’s face, of her disappearance.

I was determined to see her again. It seemed strange, wanting to apologise to a figment of my own imagination. But it felt right. I wanted to make things good again, to cuddle her like that time before. But…
	My head filled with all sorts of thoughts as the evening drew towards night. I sat at my computer, squirming and blushing, a heat in my ears unlike any from before. I thought about the way she had yelped when I tickled her hoof with my tongue. It was...such an adorable sound. Would she be offended if I wanted to hear it again?
	I mentally slapped myself. Why was I being so stupid? It was my dream. I could do what I wanted, surely! I straightened in my seat, squaring my jaw.
	“It is my dream,” I said aloud. “And I will do what I want to do in it!”
	I was too wired up to sleep. But science had the answer! I grabbed the packet of sleeping pills from my desk and cracked two out, dropping them onto my tongue and washing them back with water.
	I woke shackled to a wall. It was unexpected to say the least! My arms were above me, gripped at the wrists by the metal. I could feel similar down by my feet. And my back pressed against the stone. No...not a wall. A pillar of smooth marble. And the touch of a breeze against me. I yelped, embarrassed, until I shifted my legs and felt that my boxers were still on. I shook my head, trying to see; something silky and soft was over my eyes, blinding me.
	“You were going to be mean to me.”
	It was Luna’s voice. I cringed at the volume of the booming shout.
	“I wasn’t! I just-”
	“Do not lie to me!”
	The shackles holding my wrists tugged forwards and down. I realised that they had separated from the wall, but still they held me unforgivingly, as if guided by a moving grip. Magic? I teetered as they pulled me off balance and fell to my knees into cushions. The blindfold whipped from my eyes and suddenly I could see.
	“Luna!”
	She stood above me, eyes cast down, regal and majestic, with her mane dancing like flames. This wasn’t the dream I wanted. Where was the loving, affectionate Luna who would cuddle and tickle my neck with her breath and let me stroke her back, so peaceful and relaxed. I clenched my eyes shut and concentrated hard, trying to make it happen. But when I opened them I still knelt in shackles, while she stood over me, surrounded by the silken sheets and cushions of this strange, dreamlike place.
	“Why do you come into my dreams,” she said, “with such thoughts?”
	“Your dreams? But this is...wait, what thoughts?”
	Her commanding expression melted and her cheeks flushed. “Uh…”
	Realisation dawned, and I bit my lip. Oh. Those thoughts. My mind flashed with imaginings; Luna gasping and giggling as I danced my tongue against her hoof, Luna clinging to me, begging for more. Luna...wanting my control.
	She turned her head away, as if knowing what span through my head. Her wings flapped and settled back against her sides. She was biting her lip, a hoof raised up to her mouth.
	“Or maybe,” she said, turning to look at me. “Maybe this is your dream?”
	I bit my lip, saying nothing, but she read my uneasiness. I felt the pressure on my wrists disappear and saw that the shackles had disappeared. I started to stand up, but Luna was there in an instant, her head nuzzling against my cheek.
	“I am sorry I shouted, Caroo,” she said, her voice as soft as a whisper. I had no idea she could be so quiet. She must have been practicing. I tried to tell myself again that she wasn’t real, just a character in a show and a figment of my imagination. But she felt real, stroking her cheek against mine, breathing against my ear.
	“That’s okay,” I said, feeling dazed. I lifted my arms to cradle around her shoulders, and gently eased her down towards me, laying back into the cushions and bringing her with me. My dream, I reminded myself. The one place where I could get anything I wanted.
	“But,” I said, licking my lips and hesitating only for a moment. “I think...you should be punished for shouting.”
	“Punished?” she squeaked, and I felt that same delightful shiver from the last time she made that noise.
	“Oh yes,” I said, hoping and praying that it would be a long, long time before the alarm woke me. “Punished…”
	“Eep!”
	“Eep is right!” I rolled her to the side, easing her down onto her back in the cushions. She looked up at me with big worried eyes, and for a moment I hesitated, feeling back. But then I saw the twinkle of excitement in them. This was the look someone gets the moment before their roller coaster tips over the peak of the first drop: a happy terror. I lay beside her, my head propped up on my elbow, touching a fingertip of my other paw on her tummy. Immediately she squealed and brought all four legs together, her hooves gently gripping my arm, tugging me away.
	“That feels strange,” she said.
	“Tickles do.”
	“Tickles? What are tickles?”
	I grinned. What an opening. I nudged her hooves away without resistance. I sat up onto my knees, freeing both paws, readying them for the plunge. “Tickles? Oh, nothing much. Just this!”
	I dug all ten fingers into her flanks, my blunt claws probing in past her fur and dancing against the soft, sensitive skin beneath. She gasped, breathless, as if she had been plunged into icy water. Then everything became a chaos of kicking hooves and squirming, writhing, giggling pony!
	I laughed too, riding an elation that I had never felt before. Her kicking hooves did no harm. They bumped against my arms and slid off each time, no force in them at all. My fingers blitzed across her slender body, making it buck and struggle this way and that, wherever I wanted it to go, like a puppet. When I wanted to free up her left side, I dug my fingertips into her right side and made her bend that way in a futile, instinctive effort to protect herself, giving me a long exposed stretch of ever so ticklish pony flank on the left, ready for me to pounce onto! Her fur ruffled all over where my fingers had gone, leaving trails clustered around all the spots that seemed to make her musical laugh jump an octave.
	“These are tickles,” I shouted over her giggles. “Do you like tickles?”
	I listened for her answer, but there were none. My fingers were merciless! She could barely snatch a breath between overwhelming bouts of laughter. Her eyes stared up towards the hanging sheets, rimmed with pearls of tears. I watched her tongue dance in her open, laughing mouth. Her legs struggled without control now, but still with no force. She could kick me off if she wanted to! I raked my claws in one last sweep from under her forelegs right down to her hips, then leaned down over her, caught by impulse, planting my lips against hers as her last whimpering giggle died away.
	Heaven. I parted my lips and slid my tongue between them, finding she had done the same. I made an undignified noise, like a mewl mixed with a purr mixed with a squeak and a growl.
	And that was when her hoof thumped into the side of my head, knocking me away and sending me rolling over onto my back next to her. I clutched my ringing head.
	“Ow!” I groaned.
	She sat up, crossing her forelegs and looking away, eyes closed, haughty and huffy. “I did not deserve that punishment!”
	I rubbed at my head, confused. No pain? But then, it was my dream. The dizziness subsided and I sat up next to her. She glanced over with one eye, then resumed her pouting.
	“Hmmph!”
	“You never answered me,” I said, touching my fingertips to her side and giving them a probing wiggle. She flexed under my touch, yelping through clenched teeth, then shot me a dirty look.
	“I choose not to answer your ridiculous question!”
	“I think you liked it.” I prodded at her sides. She squeaked and batted at me with a hoof. She was flushed, exhausted, rosy cheeked with excited eyes. I expected her to fight, to perhaps tickle me back? But she flopped backwards into the cushions instead, her forelegs up above her head, a tired sigh on her lips. I chuckled and lay down alongside her, shuffling my arm in underneath her. She rolled towards me, cuddling into my side.
	“Think what you wish,” she breathed. “If you must!”
	The night seemed to stretch out for us. I wondered how time passed in a dream. Would it be limited by the length of the night? Or could it be an eternity if I wanted it to? I could only hope.
	I swung myself over on top of her. I watched her eyes widen. She knew what was coming. I stroked at her tummy, not tickling just yet. She frowned, puzzled.
	“What are y-”
	“Let’s play a game,” I said.
	“What kind of game?”
	“It’s called…” I paused in thought, then smiled. “The keep still game.”
	“I’m not sure I like the sound of that game.”
	“You’ll love it! It’s very easy to play. All you have to do,” I said, taking hold of her wrists and guiding her hooves up past her head, to lay on the cushions either side of her horn, “is keep these here.”
	“That doesn’t sound too-hey!”
	It was only a gentle prod against her tummy, but was enough to make her yelp and reach her legs down.
	“Oh dear, you lost. I thought you would be good at this.”
	She grumbled, swatting the back of my paw with her hoof. “What happens now?”
	“Now,” I said, taking hold of her wrists once more and placing them back above her head, “we try again. And again and again, until you win.”
	Her delicate voice caught in a nervous whimper was beautiful music to me!
	“I should not be letting you do this,” she said.
	“So why are you?”
	She nibbled on her lip, then looked away, over to the hanging sheets. It was an answer alright, and it told me everything. I wanted so badly to pull her up into a tight hug. But I had to be strong! There was a different enjoyable activity to do first. Hugs later. For now…
	...tickles!
	And really, wasn’t tickling a far better form of affection? The trust? The intimacy? The happy laughter? I leaned down over her, my smile filling her close vision. My fingertips walked down her forelegs, getting closer to the points that would make her squeal.
	“Just concentrate,” I whispered. “You can do it. I know you can. I have faith in you!”
	She closed her eyes and shuddered.

Her forelegs trembled as I walked my fingertips along their lengths. The silken sheets billowed in a non-existent breeze, and through them I could see more than ever the silent emptiness of the lunar scree. I felt her writhe between my legs, pleading with small, hiccupy wails.
	“Keep your hooves where they are,” I reminded her, my smile hovering just over her whimpering, blushing muzzle.
	“Please…” she gasped.
	“Please?”
	She whinnied, a frustrated noise. “Please!”
	“Please what? What are you begging for?”
 	Such a playful tease in my voice. My fingers crept closer to the extra sensitive spot just under her forelegs. Her hooves twitched, and her muscles strained, fighting to keep them where she was told to keep them.
	“Please don’t…”
	“Don’t what, Princess?”
	“Please!”
	I brushed my lips against hers, kissing that plea. I felt her body push up against mine as my fingers reached the sensitive spot. Her whimpers strung together as a long, continuous sound. My fingers were still, but she knew they wouldn’t stay that way. She knew they would start to wriggle, effortlessly bringing her to helpless spasms of laughter. The question was, when? How long would this torturous wait last?
	“P-please...don’t tickle me,” she gasped, at last.
	“Well that depends on you, doesn’t it?”
	I flinched my fingers and she squeaked. Her hooves jolted an inch, but laid back where they were.
	“Good girl,” I said.
	She replied with a whine that made me shiver.
	I let her dance on the edge of anticipation for a few minutes more. I brushed my cheek against hers and listened to her panting. I felt the heat of her body under my fingertips. I felt her muscles twitching. In such perfect, placid calm, she was wound tense and vulnerable.
	And then I unleashed the frenzied scrabbling of my fingertips that she had been waiting for. With tiny movements, just from the second knuckles down, I made her shriek! Her beautiful, melodic voice filled my ears with the racing laughter of her gleeful torment, and her hooves shot down from above her head to push at my wrists, knocking my paws away from her.
	“Oh dear,” I said. “You failed again.”
	“I am sorry!” she whimpered, looking up at me with those pretty blue eyes. I felt her heart pounding underneath my palm, resting on her chest. Her lower lip quivered. “I couldn’t help it!”
	“We’ll just have to try again, won’t we?” I looped my fingers around her wrists and gently guided them back up above her head, exposing her clear and vulnerable once more.
	“Nooo!” she moaned.
	“Don’t worry,” I said, a dancing tease in my voice that made her whine in that delicious frustration again. “I’m sure you’ll get it soon!”
	I placed my fingertips at her wrists. She let out a teary, giggly sob and kicked her hind leg against the cushions. My fingertips were ready to walk down her legs again.
	“This time for sure,” I said. “After all, don’t they say?”
	“Say what?”
	I grinned, starting to spiderwalk my fingertips. “That the fifty-sixth time is the charm…”

I didn’t need to see her again, not for a long while at least; the glow of contentment that I woke with stayed with me unblemished, seemingly endless. Wherever I went, whatever I did, the memory of her laughter stayed with me. And after the merciless tickling, stretching hour after hour, with no weariness and no boredom to spoil it, and after her eventual success of keeping her hooves rigidly still while my fingertips danced up and down her sides, while she screamed and laughed and bucked and kicked with the rest of her body, and after I finally relented and awarded her the reluctant victory, we celebrated her success with a close, exhausted cuddle, deep in the nest of cushions and silky sheets, my eyes closing and drifting away into the sleep that would bring me back to the dream of reality, with her head against my chest, her heartbeat merging into mine.
I drifted through my day with a smile on my face, my thoughts ever trapped in that silky room, in the soft embrace of Luna, in the sweet melody of her laughter. Night couldn’t come soon enough. I stood in the glow of the waning moon, feeling poetic, staring up and wondering if she looked back. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.
And then bed summoned me. And beyond the bed, the dream of the moon and the Princess who awaited me there.
I felt like I had slipped into the dream already in progress. The silky sheets were darker, shadows lancing across the cushions. And sat in the centre of that space of soft comfort and relaxation was a squat and solid set of medieval stocks.
“What is…”
Her head popped up from behind the stocks. Her smile shone and her eyes shifted nervously.
“Do you...like it?” she said. “I was not sure if you would like it. Did I get it right?”
“It’s...perfect!”
She touched her hooves to the top of the wood. “What is it?”
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head, mane flowing. “I only knew that you would like it.”
I stopped myself from asking how she could know that. It was a dream. So, deep down, I was pleasing myself. I stepped over cushions and crouched down to touch the stocks, caressing the varnished wood with my fingertips, then cupped her cheek with my paw.
“I’ll show you how it works.”
I lifted the latch at the end of the stocks and hauled the heavy upper half up. She stared down into the four smooth semicircular notches cut into the lower half. I felt my heart in my chest. Wonderful anticipation!
“Your hooves go here,” I said, patting the notches.
She rested her forehooves into the two leftmost notches. “Like this?”
I shook my head and gently guided them one notch over, into the two centre notches. “Here. And your rear hooves go in these ones.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I...see,” she said uncertainly, gracefully shifting to sit on her rear, laying her ankles into the outer two notches. “What do I do n-hey!”
The upper half of the stocks came down with a gentle thud and the latch clicked shut. Four deliciously vulnerable hooves hung stuck on one half of the wooden divide, while the rest of the pony sat isolated on the other side.
“I don’t like this,” she said. I watched her shoulders twist as she tried to wrench a hoof free. “Release me this instant!”
I leaned across the top of the stocks and brought my nose close to hers. Her stern pout stayed defiant. I said nothing, just smiling, just touching my lips against hers.
“R-release...me?”
“But I haven’t shown you how this works yet.”
“Yes you have. I put my hooves in this thing and you…” She froze, her words tailing off. My fingertips rested against the soles of both of her hind hooves.
“And I?”
“You would not dare!”
“Wouldn’t dare do what?”
She boomed, her voice making me shake. “You would not-eeeee!”
Her head flung back, mouth wide open, squealing at full volume, louder even than her commanding shout of authority. My fingertips scraped in tiny circles around the centre of her hooves. Such tiny movements! It was all that was needed to completely demolish her composure. I kept those little circles turning, making those adorable little hooves wriggle under their tickley touch, while she rolled her head and lost every shred of regal, royal dignity in waves of beautiful, tinkling laughter.
Finally, I stopped. A while afterwards, she regained enough composure to speak.
“Get me out of this thing...now.” Her voice lacked the commanding edge that I was sure that she was trying to achieve.
“Why?” I moved both paws to her forehooves. She yelped and flinched, but I kept my fingers still. “Don’t you want to let me enjoy your generous gift?”
“Nooo!” she cried, shaking her head. But her eyes locked onto mine, wide and innocent and tempting with a dare. “I did not know it would be so...so…”
“Hmm?” I pressed the claws of my thumbs into the centres of her hoof soles. She yelped and kicked, but her hooves went nowhere.
“No please! Do not do that, please!”
“But why not? You seem to like it! It makes you laugh, and that means it makes you happy, doesn’t it?”
She shook her head, whining with the same frustration she showed when we played our last game.
“But Princess,” I said, giving my thumbs another tiny twitch, making her spasm. “It’s so wrong to lie! You know that.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side. “I cannot stand it...these t-tickle things.”
“You did so well last time!”
“That was different. Not my hooves.”
“Your hooves are more ticklish than your sides?”
“Yes.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t think I should take your word for it. I think I should test it!”
She shook her head, mouth open to protest, but my fingers moved faster. Her hooves wiggled adorably, their tips bobbing up and down while my fingertips danced underneath them. She tugged helplessly at the firm, strong stocks, and I knew for certain now that this was my dream and not hers. She would surely work some magic to get free if she had control. But she had none, and she was helpless, totally powerless and at my mercy. And I would almost have felt guilty, were it not for the way she looked at me whenever her tossing head could hold still for long enough, with her creased up, tear-lined eyes, trapped in helpless laughter, and with such a look of excited joy inside them!
Maybe I was imagining it. It was my dream, after all. But the more I sat there, relaxed so comfortably in the cushions, my fingertips the only part of me needing to move, while she thrashed and laughed and laughed and laughed, the more I convinced myself it was true. Maybe it wasn’t my dream after all. Maybe it was her dream, as she had first thought. Maybe this was her true desire, to be a slave and not a Princess.
“You were right,” I said, letting my fingers rest, letting her gasp for breath, head hanging low, her mane fallen across her eyes, masking her in stars. “You are really ticklish on your hooves! I’m not sure if you’re more ticklish there than on your sides, though. I don’t think I’m quite convinced yet.”
“I am...I am!” she cried.
“You’ll have to prove it.” I rotated my thumbs, half an inch, dragging my blunt claw tips across her soles.
“Nooo! I am! I am really ticklish on my hooves!”
“I think I should tickle them more just to make sure.”
“Please, no!” Her hooves wiggled again, so adorable!
“Would you rather I tickle you somewhere else instead?”
She hesitated, blinking at me, a slowly dawning look of dread on her face. That same helpless, somewhat amused frustration. “N-no,” she whispered.
“Oh, so your sides are more ticklish than your hooves? Okay then, I’ll just keep tickling your hooves…”
“No! Please…”
“Please what?”
“Please…” She bit her lip and looked down. I could barely hear her when she spoke again. “Please...tickle my sides.”
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” 
“Please tickle my sides!”
I lifted my fingers off her hooves. “You want me to tickle your sides, is that what you’re asking?”
She nodded, pouting.
“Well, alright then!” I stood up, and she watched me, alarmed.
“Where are you going?”
“To do as you requested, Princess.” I walked around behind her and arranged a few cushions, then lowered myself down to sit with my chest up against her back, my legs either side of her, spread to reach past the stocks. I placed my paws on her hips and my muzzle on her shoulder. “To tickle your sides,” I whispered.
I traced my fingertips from her hips all the way up to the join of her forelegs. She flexed and leaned her head back against my shoulder, her squeaky gasp tickling my ear.
“Must you?”
“Oh I must!”
I wrapped my arms around her, snugly squeezing her. My arms crossed over her front and my fingertips rested on her ribs. I felt her head turn and press against mine.
“No no no please…”
“Three…”
“Please, Caroo, please do not…”
“Two…”
“I will do anything you want, please!”
“One!”
I sank my fingers into her soft and supple sides and danced them like wiggly spider legs! Every finger moved independent of all the others. No pattern, no sequence, nothing to get used to! I flurried up and down her sides, poking and digging and exploring in a maddening, crazy, snaking path all over her body. And she struggled with every muscle in her body, writhing and rubbing against me, while her voice sang with the sweet melody of laughter, uncontrollable and unwilling, brought on mercilessly by the intimate evil of tickles!
“I don’t think you’re right,” I said, laughing along with her, feeling like a king. “I think you are as ticklish on your sides as your hooves!”
She shook her head, eyes clenched shut, tears on her cheeks, laughing in a pitch that climbed higher and higher, getting faster and faster, becoming a shriek.
“Yeeeees!” I darted both paws in under her forelegs. She tried to pull her elbows down, but the stocks held her legs up, totally exposed, totally vulnerable. “I think you are! So ticklish! My ticklish little Princess pony!”
Through the boiling torrent of her laughter came one shaky, gasped word “Y-yours?”
“Hmm?” I raked my claws down her sides, leaving trails of disturbed fur, and making her shriek and lift bodily out of my lap, before collapsing back. “Oh, of course! You’re my Princess. Hmm...or should that be something else?” I walked my fingertips back up her sides, step by step, giving each claw a little scritch at each touch, bringing a crescendo of laughter from her as they passed over her particularly tickly spots. Just where the ribs started was a highlight. And then right in under her forelegs; those spots rivalled her hooves for sensitivity. “Slave, perhaps? My little tickle slave Luna?”
She shook her head, eyes still clenched shut. “Nooo!”
“Oh I think so.” I turned my head to nuzzle in against her neck, breathing in her soft scent. I exhaled a puff of air, ruffling her fur, and I could swear that even that made her shiver. “Why don’t you say it?”
“N-no!”
I slid the flat of my palms down her sides, until they rested at her hips. Her giggles died down, replaced by breathless panting. Slowly, I started to rotate my thumbs, their claws pressing into her soft sides just above her hip bones.
“No? You don’t want to say that you’re my little slave?” My sing-song voice brought another whine of frustration from her. To be restrained and tickled was one thing. But to be teased about it? Oh that was cruel, most definitely.
“Please...I don’t want to say it.”
I drove my thumbs in deep. She jolted against me, head thrown back, mouth open in a breathless gasp that quickly became a squeal and a rapid-fire giggle.
“Sorry sorry sorry!” she cried. “I will say it! I will say it please!”
I stopped my thumbs moving, but kept the pressure up. She trembled, every muscle tense, barely able to contain her laughter even while my thumbs were motionless.
“Go ahead!” I said brightly.
“I am your little slave,” she said in a timid, shaky voice.
	“Are you sure?” I said. The rest of my fingers joined the fun, tapping a little pattern against her fur, making her giggle. “Not a Princess any more? Just a helpless little giggle tickle slave?”
	“Yes!” she cried, and the giggles mingled with her words. “Just your helpless little giggle tickle slave!”
	“I’m so glad!” I let go of her and shuffled back, then stood up. She tilted her head back to look at me, her head upside down, her face flushed, her mouth in an uncertain pout, and her eyes wide and tear-lined and twinkling.
	“As you’re my slave,” I said, standing over her, my paws on my hips, “that means you’ll have to call me sir.”
	“Yes sir,” she whispered. She looked away. Did the blush get stronger, perhaps? I moved around in front of her to see. Yes! Yes it did! I crouched down in front of the stocks, and she squeaked nervously.
	“Shall I let you out of the stocks now?”
	She hesitated, flitting a glance at me.
	“Or…” and I dared to hope, a ridiculous grin of excitement plastered onto my face. “Do you want me to tickle you some more?”
	She wriggled. Agitated, perhaps? Nervous? No...embarrassed! Another glance at me, another hesitation. Then the clincher; a nibbled lower lip and a shy smile.
	“I see! Very well then…” I settled my fingers onto her hooves. “Your wish is my command, slave!”

Hours or days passed. I couldn’t track the time here, and every moment felt like an eternity when I was with her. My fingers probed every inch of her body, from her adorable, twitchy little nose, to her ethereal and ever-moving tail. I found every sweet spot and exploited them thoroughly. She made the wood and metal of the stocks creak and strain. I let her rest whenever she seemed exhausted, letting her regain her breath and her voice, so she could sing her laughter afresh. Each time I thought would be the last; she would have enough of the tickle torment, would ask me to stop. And I would have, if she had asked.
	Instead, every time, she met my eye and smiled that shy smile, and I knew she wanted me to tickle her more.
	In the end it was me and not her who tired first. Not physically, though. I felt as awake and energetic as ever. But mentally, I wanted a change. I wasn’t bored of hearing her giggle and feeling her beautiful body writhe under my fingertips, but I wanted something else. I wanted to feel the peace and contentment of her snuggling with me again.
	I released her from the stocks. I saw her reluctance as she lifted her hooves out of the notches. I curled a finger and she climbed up onto her hooves, wobbling unsteadily, and trotted over.
	“Yes sir?” she said.
	“No more sir.” I patted my lap. I saw recognition in her eyes, and she climbed across my thighs. It was like that first embrace again, her weight on my legs, her body draped down over mine, her nose against my neck and my arms across her back. I felt her small body’s breathing, felt her heartbeat.
	“Tickles are very strange,” she said.
	“Hmm?”
	“They are…” she paused, thoughtful. “They are nice, but...it is as if my body does not like them. But they make me happy. So I have to be held in those stocks or you have to tell me to be still...just so that I do not stop you giving me the tickles that feel good? It is very strange. I do not understand tickles.”
	I smiled, hugged her tighter. “I don’t understand it either. But you don’t have to understand it to enjoy it, do you?”
	“No,” she said. “I suppose not.”
	I laid my head back into the cushions and looked up at the canopy of silk sheets. “Where is this place?”
	“This is the moon,” she said. I felt her hooves shift, embracing my sides. I sighed happily.
	“Why are we on the moon?”
	“It is a peaceful place. A good place, do you not think?”
	“It is.” I sighed, closing my eyes. “I will have to wake up soon. I just know it. And when I do, I’ll be alone in my room, and you won’t be there. It’s peaceful there too...just not in the same way.”
	“Here, you mean?”
	“Hmm?”
	I opened my eyes. My bed surrounded me. The pale light of the moon streamed through the window. The night was silent and still, and Luna was perched on my legs, her smiling eyes gleaming in the moonlight. She was clothed, for the first time since I had seen her. Thick, fleecy pyjamas, in deep royal blue, with shiny silver stars sewn into them all over.
	“Oh wow,” I breathed. I reached to touch her. She was still real. That meant I was still dreaming. I had dreamed her here in this room before. I was not awake yet. Such relief. The waking world had nothing for me. “You look so cute in those!”
	She lay down on top of me again. “Thanks!” Her head lay on my chest again, nose at my neck, her horn gently resting against my ear. “You are right, sir. It is peaceful here too.”
	“And it’s good,” I said. “Now that you’re here…”
	I rolled her to the side and sat up, looking down at her. My slave Luna, laying in my bed, her head on my pillow.
	“What are you doing, sir?”
	I lifted up the edge of her pyjama top, exposing her adorable little tummy. It definitely looked even cuter when it was peeping out between clothes.
	“I’m going to tickle your tummy, slave.”
	She yelped and hid her face behind her hooves. “R-really?”
	“Yup!” I tugged her pyjama top up further to expose that soft blue fur. A blush flooded her face, and I could see it when she peeked through her hooves. “I’m going to tickle your tummy, and you have to stay quiet.”
	“Quiet? Why?”
	“Because you’ll wake the neighbours if you laugh!”
	I started with feather-light tracing of my fingertips, up and down the curve of her tummy. She flinched her hooves down towards me, but then thrust one to the side and scooped up the corner of my bedsheet. Just as I started to wiggle my fingers in frenzied little tickle wiggles she stuffed the sheet in her mouth to muffle the giggle.
	“Mmhmhmhm!”
	Her eyes scrunched up in near silent mirth. She shook her head and kicked her hindlegs at the air.
	“Tickle tickle tickle,” I whispered.
	“Mmmph!”
	She looked at me with pleading eyes, and I smiled back. 
	“Such a cute tummy,” I whispered. “You’re doing well. So quiet! So considerate!”
	I lowered my lips towards her fur. Her eyes widened and she shook her head. I grinned and nodded.
	“Something the matter?”
	I extended my tongue and probed it down through her fir, flicking the wet tip against her skin. She squealed, louder than I knew she meant to, and bucked beneath me, trying to roll to the side. I pressed my paw onto her chest to hold her still.
	“Tummy licks tickle you, huh?” I slid my other paw behind the small of her back and pulled her up while my tongue drove down, lapping deep and long through her fur. The sheet dropped from her mouth and loud, adorable laughter filled the room.
	“Shh!” I hissed, bursting into giggles myself. “You’ll wake the neighbours!” I dug my fingers into her sides. Wiggle wiggle, tickle tickle!
	“S-stop tickling me then!” she gasped, her voice like hiccups between laughs.
	“Stop tickling you? Why? That’s silly! You just have to show self-control!”
	“Nooo!” She nudged her hooves at me, a protest that showed no real effort to break me clear. I slid my paws up inside her pyjama top and tickled at her sides. She clamped her forelegs down over the top of my paws, but it was too late; my paws were trapped there, tickling mercilessly, and she couldn’t stop them.
	“Stooop!” she cried. “W-we will wake the neighbours.”
	“That’s what I said!” I laughed, sending my paws on a tickle flurry all around her body. “If we’re not careful we might wake up…”
	I cupped my paw across her mouth, and she frowned. Her voice came through my fingers, muffled. “What are you doing?”
	“Shh,” I whispered. Her horn gleamed in the moonlight. I freed my other paw from her pyjamas. “I just realised something. Something extremely important.”
	“What is it?” She tried to shake her muzzle free of my paw, but she didn’t try very hard. I think it was my grin that stopped her. That, or the way my eyes purposely drifted up towards her horn.
	“Oh no!” she gasped.
	“I haven’t checked to see if your horn is ticklish. How could I have missed it?”
	“Oh nooo!”
	I nodded, grinning. Her eyes pleaded with me for mercy, but devilish curiosity drove me on. I kept one paw over her mouth while the other crept up towards her horn, passing through the air above her face, letting her see my flexing, nimble fingers. She watched them with wide, dread-filled eyes.
	“I command you not to.”
	“Silly slave.” I felt her shudder beneath me at that word. “You don’t command me. I command you. With little tickly touches I make you do whatever I want.”
	“I will do what you want!” She tried again to shake my paw off her mouth. I felt her tongue lick against my fingers. My clawtips touched against the smooth, hard surface of her horn. “Please do not tickle there!”
	“But Luna,” I said cheerfully, giving my fingertips a little experimental scritch. Her eyes shot wide, pupils contracting, and her mouth opened beneath my paw to gasp out the most tortured peals of laughter I had ever heard. I lifted my paw off her mouth and let the unmuffled sound wash over me. I had barely moved my fingers! This had to be the most ticklish spot yet! I reached up with my now free paw to grip the base of her horn, keeping her from wriggling away. “What I want you to do is laugh for me!”
	Her hooves beat weakly against my chest. “S-stop! Please!”
	“Please what?” I teased.
	“Please sir! Please I will do anything please!”
	“I know you will.” I laughed and she groaned, rolling onto her side, tugging her head to try and free herself, but the tickling torment made her uncoordinated, and hooking my leg around her waist kept her nice and secure. “Laughing is one of those things.”
	“Nooo please. Anything else sir! Please!”
	I relented, only for a moment. She sounded truly unwilling, and that didn’t seem right to me. I was about to speak, to suggest something else, when her head turned to me, with her moonlit face, blushing and exhilarated, with twinkling eyes and a nervous smile. I felt my power over her melt in the intensity of how adorable she looked.
	“Why did you stop?” she said.
	I was stunned. Wordless. I didn’t expect…
	I smiled. I laughed! Possibly even louder than she had done. I planted a kiss on her nose and grinned like a happy lunatic. Then I forced the sternest face I could imagine, but couldn’t keep the smile from twitching at my frown. Her nervous smile grew, definitely embarrassed.
	“Say it properly, then!” I said.
	She bit her lip and looked down. So shy and reserved. But the playful fire in her eyes when she looked back up at me was anything but. I had created something here. More than a regal, innocent Princess. Or maybe it had been there all along, and it just needed me to bring it out. The happiness shone in her smile, as I was sure it must have done in mine.
	“Please tickle my horn some more, sir.”
	“As you wish, slave!”
	And my fingers descended back to that screamingly sensitive horn. The night was long. The neighbours breathed not a word of complaint, because of course this was still my dream. And when I awoke for real, the morning feeling like a lifetime since the drawing in of the night, I felt alive.
	Because I knew now that when I closed my eyes to sleep again, she would be there. I would tell her about my day and hold her close against me, and she would ask her innocent and curious questions about what it all meant. And my stroking fingers would inevitably curl to press their tips against her fur, and she would shudder against me, and her eyes would turn up towards me, silently urging me on for more. And I, her willing slave and master, would happily serve.
And that night, on the distant desert of the moon, wreathed in silk, we lay together, my arms around her body, her nose touching mine, her hooves gently playing with my chest fur. Around her neck gleamed the silver collar studded with glittering jewels, the one that promised her willing subservience, her eternal devotion as my happy tickle slave. And around my neck gleamed a slender chain holding the key that unlocked that collar, a key that we knew would never be used.
	I touched my lips to hers. She giggled into the kiss. I couldn’t resist, just a little tickle, at that exposed tummy of hers...