1/10

	If there was a height at which pegasi would become nauseous, the carriage had endeavored to find it, though it may have had more to do with the current state that I found myself in and less to do with the fact that we were flying. They had endeavored to make it comfortable, but there was just something unsettling about having your forelegs, hindlegs, and wings clamped together in runic steel designed to prevent you from breaking free.
	I was staring daggers at Tempest Shadow, who stood up near the front and had not yet noticed by silent treatment. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to talk anyway. I needed to sort out my thoughts on the matter.
	Most stallions would call me crazy, being this upset about the whole ordeal, and I had to admit that there was already a certain appeal to the concept. Every stallion thought about it. I imagine a lot of mares, did, too. Princess Celestia was hot. There was even a fairly large, low-key grey market for unsavory materials involving her. Not that I would know anything about that.
	Still, that was hardly the whole issue. The real problem I found myself bumping against was the sheer abruptness of the whole thing. Weren’t you supposed to like, vet these sorts of positions, compare options, interview the potential applicants, and decide which one you liked best? That notion was a little bit disconcerting. I didn’t have any illusions about winning a competition on stallionship.
	Letting my paltry attempts at rage seep away for now, I tried communicating. Usually much more effective. “Hey, uh, Tempest Shadow?”
	“Captain. Captain Tempest Shadow.” She said without looking away from the front of the carriage. There was something behind the edge in her tone, but it was a bit harder to decipher. Better play the game if you hoped to win it.
	“Captain Tempest Shadow,” I said with a conciliatory nod, nearly  falling over as the metal bonds unbalanced me. “How did I end up getting chosen for this… illustrious position?”
	“Magic.”
	I paused. That seemed like the sort of thing you would elaborate on, but she seemed content to leave it there. “Like, a wizard or uh-”
	She glared back at me with a dagger’s edge, but her expression softened when she saw the state I was in, and her horn fizzled again. With a click, the steel bonds came apart and fell to the ground, the magic of the metal tuned to her aura to allow her control over them. As they fell apart, a slumped into a more comfortable position and began to rub and the patches where my fur was matted down, massaging them back to full fluff.
	“I just… mostly don’t know,” she said, sounding more defeated than anything else. “I used to lead armies, command respect, destroy kingdoms…”
	“What was that last o-”
	“And now I got handed an order to abduct some colt and drag him to Princess Celestia to be a sex slave!”
	“I, um, w-what?”
	“Oh piss off. It's not like you’re not jazzed about the whole deal, since if this isn’t a big run-around you get to stick your dick in your beloved princess of the sun.”
	“I’m… kind of scared.”
	That left her quiet, leaving for a moment only the whistle of wind as we flew at breakneck speeds towards Canterlot, the looming city of the mountain slowly filling our view as we got ever closer to the castle, the princess, and whatever lay in wait.
	“What? Why would you be scared?” She asked, sitting back against the railing. “All your being asked to do is sex.”
	“I, um…” I rubbed at the back of my head and tried to look away at anything, looking over the side at the ground passing below like some kind of teen novel protagonist. “I’m not exactly prime stallion material.”
	“I’ve noticed.” She said flatly, eyes flicking up and down my body briefly.
	I winced at that. “I’m pretty short, pretty scrawny, and my uh, penis isn’t like, super huge or anything.”
	She raised an eyebrow at that and I could see the smirk on her face. Naturally, this sort of conversation was the perfect sort to allow me to be rational and intelligent about choosing my next words.
	“It’s not like tiny! It’s even above average when you account for my height and my weight! I just thought that Celestia would choose like a monster cock for herself and I’m just really not there and…” I trailed off as I realized I was rambling about the size of my junk. I heard slight snickering from a pegasus guard towing the carriage along and abruptly went scarlet as I resumed my seat and my silence, this time with my hooves carefully placed to obscure any look at my junk.
	“Whatever the particular magic she used to select you was, “ Tempest said with a coy smoothness, “I’m sure it handled mundane concerns such as ‘penis size’.” Something seemed to be making her feel better… maybe it was the capacity to display calm superiority in the face of an obviously panicking colt. Er, stallion. “Hang on now, we’re about to begin our final descent.”
	I nodded, wings flaring out as I prepared myself to begin to fall, an instinctive response that had something to do with my ability to sense change in altitude. I don’t know how a non-pegasus could handle flying in one of these chariots: they were tense enough as is, and even I was freaking out a little bit knowing that I could probably handle an overturn without dying. And yet Tempest seemed as calm as ever unflappable as the golden magical craft began to swoop down towards the castle on the edge of the mountain, ready to dock and deliver the cargo. Which, I suppose, was me.
	Down below the illustrious spires were more secure cargo docks carved straight into the mountain, and I could see a steady stream of various resources funneling in and out of the cavern, the pulse of Canterlot. But we weren’t angling for there: a separate and probably more secure dock hung at the base of the castle, a platform designed specifically to handle high-value traffic for the castle.