Ryan Lancaster, once a mere graduate student, looked at the invitation to the James McClelland Award for Really Fancy Physics, dated for tonight. It was at this ceremony that he would accept the award for his work in bridging the gap between Equestria and Earth (the two universes named so for their first-contact planets), and formally receive his PhD.
At the same time, his co-founder (and now domestic partner, 'wife' was not legally possible yet), Crystal Shine was to receive the same award and an honorary PhD in physics, even though her field of study was magical multiverse theory and application. Because there wasn't a magic department in the university, much less a magical foundation from which to grant a more fitting award, they had to improvise.
"Crystal, are you almost ready?" he called upstairs to her, adjusting his suit and tie nervously. He had never felt too comfortable in formal attire, even less so when on such a public occasion as this.
"Almost! Just have to hook a few more hooks!" she called down, the faint tinkling sound that always accompanied Crystal's magic audible.
Shortly after creating the gateway between universes, Ryan and Crystal had traveled back and forth many times, reveling in their own personal freedoms before eventually deciding to share their discovery. With a few letters containing the overview of the finding sent off to both parties (the university and the Diarchs of Equestria), they had settled down in a slightly larger house than Ryan's old apartment at the university, funded by Crystal's average-for-Equestria but sumptuous-for-Earth salary and a few smart investments on Ryan's part, looking ahead to the future.
As it happened, Earth's reply had been the invitations to both Ryan and Crystal and a letter of gratitude from the boards of directors of both the James McClelland Theoretical Physics foundation and the university. His advisor had informed him that despite having no progress on his PhD, they had even pre-approved him for receiving it. All in all, it was a very favorable series of events.
"And to think I have my high roommate to thank for it. Life works in mysterious ways..." he mused. Pocketing the invitation and checking his watch, he again called up to Crystal.
"Honey, we've got some time left but it's going to be close!"
"Ok, I think I'm just about ready! Be down in a second!" she called back, the tinkling sound fading away.
Ryan checked his pockets again out of habit, counting his personal items and patting them, reassured.
From the stairway, a swishing curtain of red satin with white swirls at the hem descended, developing into Crystal's clothed body (a rare sight inside the house).
"Well, how do I look?" she asked, her mouth pursed but her eyes smiling.
"You look gorgeous, love." he said, curling an arm around her back and giving her a kiss. Under his hand he could feel the fabric of the dress pulled taught, successfully holding in her generous form.
"Thank you dearie, you do as well!" she murmured through the kiss, "Though you still don't know how to tie a tie properly. And to think, I hadn't tied one up until two months ago!"
Holding him at arms length (still pressed against her large belly and breasts) she frowned at his tying job and a light blue aura surrounded the offending knot, straightening it and fluffing the edges of the tie.
"There, much better! Whatever would you do without me, hm?" she prodded, smiling.
"Oh, probably fall over my feet and die, the usual." he joked back, running a hand through her hair and exposing an ear, previously hidden by the translucent strands. She rested her face against his hand as they stood there, sharing a moment of peace before the night began.
"Sadly, I think we should get going, our public awaits." he sighed, gesturing in the direction of the clock that showed only a half hour until the beginning of the ceremony.
"I fear you're right." she agreed. As she said this, her stomach grumbled angrily, it being dinnertime but with no dinner in sight.
"Good thing this is an award /dinner/." Ryan commented, rubbing her belly.
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"Dr. Lancaster, Dr. Shine, good to see you!" bellowed the president of the university, Dr. Larry Einhard, catching sight of Ryan and Crystal at the foot of the stairs to the hall.
"Not quite doctors yet, Dr. Einhard!" Ryan replied, waving.
"All except in name, Dr. Lancaster, and since I'm the one giving you the degree I'm perfectly entitled to address you as such, thank you very much!" Einhard replied, meeting them halfway up the steps.
"As you wish, sir. It's quite an honor to be given a doctorate this young."
"That it is! You are in fact the youngest man to receive a doctorate from this institution." Einhard said, his face turning very serious.
"However," he continued with a manic glee, "you've certainly earned it. No other man has successfully even proved that multiple universes existed, much less actually go there!"
Ryan grinned but waved his hand. "I can't take much of the credit, I only built what was laid out by Yanzo. Furthermore, I couldn't have done it without Crystal's help, unintended as it was."
Einhard's face became serious again, "The scribbles that man produced could hardly be distinguished from an accident at an ink factory. You give yourself far too little credit. Of course, I do not at all belittle your partner's role in the matter."
Ryan made to protest more but Einhard clapped him on the back and beckoned to the hall's open doors.
"Come, enough of that, let's get inside and get you two situated. Your table is at the front of the hall, right next to the stage..." he said, ushering them in.
The hall was spacious and airy, one of the expensive buildings on campus. The floor was filled with round tables of uniform size and decoration, evenly spaced and decked out with a perfect arrangement of exactly five set places. The muted gold and red curtains at the edges of the hall masked the entry and exit doors to the prep halls and backstage, making the appearance and disappearance of the catering staff seem magical in nature. Einhard guided them to the front of the hall, where their table stood, nametags bearing 'Dr. Ryan Lancaster' and 'Dr. Crystal Shine' in brilliant emerald ink on their plates. Einhard had a place at the table as well, but their table was otherwise empty, having but three places set.
"Here we are, please have a seat. The other guests will be arriving shortly. If you have any special requests for wine, inform one of the serving staff, they'll be able to get you whatever you desire."
Without waiting for a reply he bustled off, muttering something about attending to more details, leaving the pair to look about them.
"It's a good thing I made you get a decent tie, your old ones would never have done for an even like this!" Crystal commented, taking her seat.
"And a good thing I made sure to get you a tailored dress, you would have never fit into anything store bought like you thought you could." he replied, returning the prod.
"Yes, yes, you're right. Good thing we have each other in general..." she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. He put his arm around her back and stroked gently up and down as guests began to trickle in.
Crystal's stomach let out another angry gurgle as time wore on, and the pair looked around to see if there was any indication of food being served soon. The wait staff milled about taking wine orders, and as they looked around one noticed them and glided over to serve them.
"What can I get the guests of honor?"
"I'm not much for wine actually, but we were wondering what the timetable for dinner is. It's been a while since we last ate." 
"The timetable calls for dinner to be served in just a few minutes. Madame, do you have a wine in mind?"
Crystal shook her head at the waiter, "No, thank you, I prefer cider."
The waiter bowed and turned to attend the other guests, most of which had now arrived.
Einhard appeared at the podium onstage and tapped the mic a few times to get everyone's attention.
"Hello everyone, and welcome to the McClelland Award ceremony. I thank you all for taking the time to come and celebrate the year's brightest minds' achievements. In a few moments dinner will be served, which is, as we've come to expect from our catering department, excellent, and after that we will get to the actual award ceremony for our two guests of honor. Thank you!"
Einhard concluded his speech and signaled to the wait staff, who began wheeling out steaming trays of food from the sides of the hall. Crystal's stomach grumbled impatiently as a cart made a beeline for their table, seemingly laden with extra food than the others.
"As per madame's legendary appetite..." the waiter explained as he dished out the food on the cart. The dishes served were not the overly decorative creations put forth by overpaid chefs. Tnstead, these were carefully developed and time honored classics honed to perfection; meatloaf with just the right amount of spice and topped with specially created ketchup with another blend of spices, shells in cheese made with seven different perfectly blended cheeses and covered with a layer of shredded parmesian, a caesar salad freshly made with ripe baby tomatoes and prepared-at-table caesar dressing, the list went on.
Crystal's mouth watered from the mere sight of the dishes placed in front of her, much less the heavenly smells that wafted forth from the steaming delicacies. She dug in as soon as the waiter had moved out from in front of her, eagerly forking in mouthful after mouthful, quieting the growling beast in her belly. Ryan ate at a much more sedate pace but watched with a warm smile on his face. Crystal had fallen in love just as much with him as with the food in his universe, and he loved her for it.
As dinner continued, Crystal continued consuming all the food placed in front of her, which the waiters were only too happy to replenish. Ryan tapped out early on, his first place also his last. Einhard lasted a bit longer, going to the second plate, but he too tapped out while Crystal was working on polishing off her fourteenth plate, and with no sign of slowing down. The food intake took its toll on her dress, slowly becoming tighter and tighter around her belly that was doing its best to break itself free of the offending garment. Luckily, the dress designers had taken this into mind when designing the garment, and at carefully prepared intervals, hidden folds in the dress fell out of their purposefully weak stitchings, adding more fabric to the battle while being covertly hidden from view. As the plate count approached fifty, however, even these measures began to run out, the final hidden fold breaking out on the last forkful of the 50th plate. With no end in sight things looked bad for the poor dress, which had only really lived for an hour. All hope was not lost, however, as Einhard excused himself from the table and walked up to the podium onstage.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the main event. I ask for your attention please, we will be but a few moments, and you may resume your dinner." he said into the mic whilst tapping a few note cards retrieved from his pocket.
"Tonight's affair is of course due to the generous award that the McClelland foundation offers to those physicists or other scientists who broaden the boundaries of science in such a way that our view of the universe is fundamentally altered." he boomed, gesturing in wide sweeping arcs.
"Normally, these alterations are slight, intangible, ephemeral. Tonight, we have with us two very important persons who have fundamentally altered our view of the universe, or should I now say, multiverse, in a very tangible way."
With a flourish he indicated the table Ryan and Crystal sat at, bowing slightly to them.
"I myself have had the privilege of speaking with her personally, and so shall you all once all the formalities are over with. Now, I ask that both Ryan Lancaster and Crystal Shine step up to the stage so that we may honor them duly and present to them the award for their monumental discovery."
A groundswell of applause rose up to carry Ryan and Crystal to the stage, where they stood next to the podium. Crystal's dress, strained to almost breaking nevertheless held fast, the creaking of the fabric barely audible to Crystal who paid it no heed.
"By the authority of our doctorate program, we, the university..." began Einhard, launching into the long and drawn out address that began the granting of a doctorate. Ryan tuned Einhard out and watched the crowd, whose eyes were mostly fixed on the alien that stood before them in a red satin dress, pushed to its limits. Crystal was definitely a sight to behold, especially for those who were not familiar with her. Her translucent hair, a long gliding trail of frosty strands swept down her back, had a blue tint to it under the light. The rest of her was a very large sky blue mountain of woman, her hands and lower legs (the latter mostly hidden from view) fading to white. She was not any taller than Ryan but much wider, occupying the space of two or three of him, a hip-heavy creature with a significant bust to boot.
Einhard's formal address finally died down and he motioned Ryan to step forward.
"Ryan Lancaster, I now present you with a copy of your doctorate, which confers upon you the title Doctor of Physical Science."
With this, Einhard handed him a small scroll tied with a gold and red ribbon and shook his hand. Motioning for Crystal to step forward, he picked up another scroll from his podium and continued,
"Crystal Shine, I now present you with a copy of your doctorate, which confers upon you the title Doctor of Physical Science."
The same procedure of scroll handing and hand shaking ensued.
"Now, Drs. Lancaster and Shine, please accept these medals as tokens of the esteem of the McClelland Award Foundation."
Handing them each a medal with a red and blue ribbon, he raised his hands and applauded them, a gesture repeated by the crowd. Ryan and Crystal clapsed their hands together and bowed in unison to accept the applause.
*Rip!*
The motion was just too much for Crystal's dress to handle, though it gave up grudgingly. A large tear appeared where the bowing gesture had strained it across her butt, widening and exposing her light purple lace underwear.
======================================================================
An hour later, Ryan and Crystal lay on their king size mattress, underwear clad but otherwise not.
"Well that was one way to end the evening, huh?" Ryan mused, his hand stroking slowly through Crystal's mane.
"I'm just sad they didn't let me take home any more food." Crystal said, her face pillowed by Ryan's hand.
After Crystal's dress had split, they had made a hasty getaway, attempting to flash her underwear at as few guests as possible while maintaining a modicum of accessibility for small talk afterward. The pair had managed to fake exhaustion and escape after only half an hour of mingling, and only Einhard had noticed Crystal's dress mishap as they dismounted the stage.
"All in all, that wasn't so bad though, huh?" Ryan asked.
"I don't think so either. The food was great, and now I've got an actual title! Maybe they'll let me back in to the pizza buffet now." Crystal replied, entirely concentrated on the potential food benefits.
"Maybe, though I somewhat doubt it. It seems somewhat unlikely they'd let you back after you cleaned them out."
"Yeah, probably not. It's nice to dream though."
"Yeah."
The two lay in comfortable silence, broken only by the whispery whirring of the overhead fan. Ryan's hand continued to stroke Crystal's hair, at times disappearing entirely into the frosty mass and others partially visible when only a few layers separated it from full view. Sighing contentedly, Crystal threw her arm out and pulled Ryan to her, kissing him gently.
"You're too good to me, you know that?" she asked softly.
"You deserve it. Might need to work on your ladylike eating habits when out in public, but otherwise you're perfect." he joked in the same tone.
"And you on your walking while a pony, clumsy." she prodded back.
"Fair enough. C'mere you..."
Ryan raised his hand from where it had been resting on his chest and placed in behind her back, pushing himself into her. His hand found her bra clasp and tried to pull it undone, but found it entirely impossible to budge it was so tightly held together.
"Looks like you might need to get some new lingerie, hm?"
"Yeah, probably. I wonder if there are any seamstresses in Equestria who know how to make magical underwear that always fits." she mused while pushing gently at her breasts to free up some slack.
"Maybe you can ask around when we go visit next."
With a little prodding from below, Crystal's breasts billowed out the top of her bra, pushing up against Ryan's chin and creating slack, allowing Ryan to finally unclasp the garment.
"Mmmm... Maybe so."
A few seconds shimmying and with a little help, her underwear came off as well, and the two were finally ready for bed.
"Goodnight Dr. Lancaster..." she yawned, pulling him closer and engulfing him in her soft expanse.
"Goodnight Dr. Shine." he said, kissing her slowly on the neck before snuggling in.
A quick snap turned off the muted light in the bedroom and the two drifted off under the fan's whisper.