>"Aaand post." the little mare doubletakes to make sure nopony else is watching
>As the Husbando Initiative program digital media manager, she had access to the human internet
>By pure coincidence, the human for her was constantly lurking in an anonymous forum
>No account was needed, which was usually a huge hurdle to jump in order to post on other social sites
>When the upper management wasn't watching, she could post in the same threads as him
>About a week ago, she got too cheeky and posted an image of herself in reply to one of his sadder posts saying she believed in him
>It was late at night and she was feeling like a risk-taker
>The little mare finds his latest post and briefly describes herself
>A few minutes later, he replies with that same picture of her from the party
>Throwing caution to the wind, she describes a little more about herself
>There was no way he could possibly know for sure
>But, just to be safe
>She'd have to delegate this thread's monitoring to herself only
>>32066059 (You)
>She made one or two more posts, positively giddy about the interaction
>The little mare closed down the browser and shut off the computer
>1AM, and she still had to head home
>She laid in bed, she got to talk to her husbando months before any portals even opened
>She thought about the little stories she posted, about thing's she'd always imagined herself doing if she ever got the chance to have somepony else in her life
>She remembered before when he was talking about how he wanted to ask his future waifu to sit on his face and his many worries revolving around it
>And the lewd bit of story she partially wrote out in response
>She was way too excited to sleep, she couldn't wait to talk to him again
>>32066197 (You)
>The little mare came back to the office the next day
>Her heart stopped when she saw a note on her desk
>'Please meet me asap, Cadance"
>She peered over the foam walls to Cadance's office
>Cadance was looking and waved her over
>Oh buck...
>Little mare got up and walked over to Cadance's office, stepping in
>"Hey there ... do you know why I called you in?"
"Umm... Why?"
>"Last night I picked up a very high resonance frequency and traced it back to here." Cadance looked very serious
>"And that type of resonance was very similar to a love gaze. I want you to tell me what happened here last night."
>Little mare's color drained
>She knew she was in deep trouble now
>Maybe she'd get kicked off of the project
"Umm... I-I." she stuttered, her usual bravado collapsing
>>32068448 (You)
>"Last night, observations department noted that a husbando began acting strangely, looks like he'd been exposed to a small amount of the same magic shared through a love gaze."
>The mare stayed quiet, knowing what was coming
>"Did you come into contact with your match?"
>She hung her head
"Yes... I posted with him on a forum and told him all about me."
>Cadance begins dialing on her phone
>"This is bad, he's not supposed to know anything about you until he gets here.”
"Wait, why?"
>"To the best of his knowledge, Equestria isn't real, so he can tolerate being trapped on Earth alone. You're not allowed to know what Earth is like and he's not allowed to know you specifically."
"I-I, how do we fix thi-" Cadance held up her hoof
>"Acquisitions, get Seashell. We're going live in one hour."
>Cadance puts the phone down and stands up
>"We're going to go get him before something happens."
>The mare followed after Cadance with alarm in her voice
"W-wait what's gonna happen to him?"
>"I'm not going to panic you but he needs to be over here yesterday."
>Cadance leads the mare downstairs to the basement levels of the building
>"Cadance, observations can't find Anon. His resonance has either changed or gone dark."
>Cadance sticks out her wing, stopping the little mare
>"You can sit in the lounge, travel to Earth is prohibited except for specially trained ponies."
>She takes a seat as Cadance and her assistant step through an armored door
>The mare felt very nervous in the early hours of the morning, her hooves tapped rapidly as anxiety built
>She looked at the clock
>It'd been all of 3 minutes
>>32069375 (You)
>Anon
>Last night's shitposting was great
>Although, you made a quick stop in /nmp/ to feelspost about how every little mare was perfect, even her imperfections
>You head on back to /s4s/ to laugh at their latest attempts to get a sticky
>You remember that time you got a stickied thread there
>The tab lights up
>Oh boy, a (You)
>On the /nmp/ thread, some strange post was replying to you
>Your mare is...
>You stop vigorously flipping through tabs of memes to focus on the block of text
>What made it so weird was how oddly fitted to you it was
>On a few issues you never mentioned in the thread, even
>Your heart warmed as you read the text again
>How could it be that specific
>A few more posts lead you to notice that the writer stuck out from the typical Anonymous guy writing, with the tilde usage and general sentence structures
>You then asked for more
>And you were rewarded shortly after with two full posts describing a mare in detail, leaving out physical descriptors to focus on her personality
>Whoever this pony was, she was perfect for you
>It felt for a moment as if this enigmatic little mare was right in front of you, so detailed and real
>You felt love for a moment, different from familial love, not the one-sided love on Valentine's Day threads
>Love that was coming towards you, not from you only
>And then the feeling left
>It was that sense of longing that someone might feel for a waifu, only endlessly stronger, like for a second she was real and loved you back but now she wasn't
>You screencap the posts for posterity and read them a second, fifth, and tenth time, that fleeting feeling of love fading with each reading
>You grip the sides of your monitor and stare at the posts
>It was 1am, you should really go to bed
>You hug a pillow tightly, trying to visualize that pony from the posts
>She'd probably want to be the big spoon, even if she was smaller
>You roll away from the pillow, feeling it against your back
>It just wasn't good enough
>>32071220 (You)
>Waking up in the early hours of the morning, you feel nothing but dread
>Even though you were off today, and had some time to yourself, you didn't want to wake up
>Despite you best imaginings and a thorough reread of those posts, you couldn't filter an image of a pony onto that pillow you hugged
>It was a pillow
>With that early morning cuddle time off of the table, you get up and make some breakfast
>The eggs were a little bland, everything was
>Like taste had gone
>Although you could still taste the bitter kick of coffee, it wasn't enjoyable
>Tv was pretty bad this morning, too
>You just weren't feeling it today
>You turn the tv off and close your eyes, feeling tired again
>The ambient sounds of passing cars slowly faded
>"Heeyy?" a voice stirred you from the deep void of sleep
>Something solid and round taps you on your cheek
>Your left eye rolls open somewhat and you see a blurry, pink figure overhead
>"Hey sleepyhead, you wanna wake up?"
>You stretch, sitting up from a deep slumber
>This wasn't your house, this was a hospital
"What happened?"
>Motherfucking Princess Cadance puts her hoof on your shoulder
>You just realized that
>"A lot happened, we can explain later but you're still needing medical help."
>The doctor is also a pony
>Your eyes dart around the room
"Am I dead?"
>"No, you just came very close to it."
>>32072904 (You)
>You look around the room, the doctor is looking at some papers
"Why did I almost die and also, why am I here?"
>"You weren't supposed to come here this soon, but there was an issue and we needed to bring you over immediately."
"What happened?"
>"You wouldn't understand if I explained so I can shorten it for you. Magic stuff happened and Earth almost drained the life from you."
"Oh."
>"Just get some rest for now, Dr. Shine will take care of you."
>Cadance turns and leaves the doctor to her work
 
>The little mare stares at the clock
>It's been almost an hour
>The lights flicker as the armored door buzzes and opens up
>She looks away from the clock to Cadance who sits next to her
>"We got him in time, but he's still recovering. We'll have to come back and check on him tonight."
"Is he doing okay?"
>"He's better than when we found him."
>Cadance almost frowns, her lack of a cheery smile was just as bad
>"When we get back upstairs I'm moving you to Interactions department."
"I'm sorry about breaking the rule." she stared at the ground
>"I can't blame you, it must've been irresistable to talk to him. I should have screened all of this more thoroughly to make sure you weren't monitoring your own match directly."
>Cadance stood up and motioned for her to follow
>"I think you'll like Interactions department, they've been waiting for a couple to study."
>>32073065 (You)
>The little mare walked with Cadance, taking an elevator to the top floor of the building
>She was greeted out of the elevator by some of Equestria's brightest
>They seemed a little annoyed
>"Happy little accidents, Seashell. ???, this is Dr. Seashell and she'll be monitoring you and Anon together."
>"Pleasure to meet you." the scientist extended a hoof
>The mare shook it with a confident and firm grasp, even if she felt nervous
>"Right now we know very little about humans. Their internet can only help so much, and we don't know how they'll adjust to life here."
>The little mare wondered
>What could really be so different about them, obviously Anon was perfect for her
>"Don't worry, we'll just be closely analyzing and judging everything about you, your match, and how you work together." she laughed
>On the floor was a small flat, furnished in typical pony fashion
>Around it was several large laboratories
>"Really, we need you to act normally with him. Most of the rooms will be monitored by friendly staff but you'll share a private bedroom."
>Her eyes lit up with the realization that she'd share a bed with somepony soon, even if it was in this strange place
>Guess that was the price to pay for anearly-access husbando
>>32073348
>A few hours passed as the mare moved some personal effects into the flat
>Cadance took a few notes on the furniture
>She mentioned making a catalog of furniture that would work for humans and ponies
>Eventually, the sun began setting, casting a red-orange tint through the windows
>Little mare was arranging the sheets on the bed, excited to enter a new stage of her life
>She was deep in thought about this, the first night, somepony to snuggle
>Obviously she'd be on top, remembering his reply to how quickly she'd win him over
>Being assertive pays off! She's finally getting [him]
>Cadance stepped into the bedroom, snapping the mare from her thoughts
>"???, are you ready? Anon just woke up."
>She gasped in excitement
"Yeah! Let's go meet him!"
>"Dr. Shine says he's feeling better, good thing the issue resolved itself with rest. She has no idea how he works."
>The mare froze up
>What if something was actually wrong
>She was thankful there wasn't, but that worry weighed heavily on her
>Cadance lead the mare to the armored door and allowed her in
>"Medical bay is on the left, Anon is in there."
>In the medical bay, there were three mares laying in hospital beds and several nurses movinv around the room
>"Don't worry, we're getting some cleansing done that the sanitation spells didn't cover. Earth can be pretty toxic."
"Is Anon safe to be around?"
>"Of course, he's been sanitized, but we still need to clean you first."
>Dr. Shine stepped out of the examination room and nodded
>"Anon is awake and well, he's been exposed to some native strains of Equestrian bacteria." she checked her clipboard, "You should be able to socialize with him safely."