+++
title = "More Than Grounded"
names = ["Pan"]
date = "2018-01-10 04:04:19"
tags = ["unf"]
spankers = ["Queen Novo"]
spankees = ["Princess Skystar"]
posts = ["31701536"]
+++

You are Princess Skystar. You had just made some new, non-shell-based friends, and now you were worried you were going to lose them forever. Normally, your mother forbids you from leaving the protection of her underwater refuge. But, you think she would understand making an exception in this case. Friends have to stick together. Queen Novo was always so supportive of your other friends, so you predict that doing this for friends and to save the world would balance out sneaking out without telling anygriff.

Your mom preferred the new term, "anyfish".

She would ground you for sure. You could take a grounding. She'd assign a guard to your door and you would be sure to talk the shells off all your friends. It would pass, and knowing you did the right thing would carry you through. Just as long as it wasn't a spanking...

No, she wouldn't. Novo was fair, even tolerant of your shenanigans. This wasn't willful malice or stealing magical shells for a craft project. You even left a note with Shelly.

..."I'm gonna get so grounded," you tell your new friends and some even newer faces than those.

...
The voyage to Canterlot was only halfway through, if you were lucky. You wish that you could just jump ahead to when you and your friends were storming the castle. Or maybe check in with Twilight for a bit and see what she was seeing.

All normal conversation topics had been exhausted hours ago. Your brain snaps you out of your current thought when it realizes Capper said your name.

"Skystar, what's grounded?"
The Captain knew. "It's when your ship takes on too much air and crashes into the ground."
"Really?"
"No, it's what pegasus ponies threaten really bad foals with. You're forced to live on the ground FOREVER!"
Fluttershy, who you learned was a ground-dweller despite her wings, sadly added:
"I'm glad I got away from that environment. But why would a seapony tell that to her daughter?"
She then said, slowly: "Twilight would know."

Everybody keeps walking in silence for a solid 10 seconds, which seems a lot longer when cutehorse drops a downer like that.
You make a casual "let's keep talking" grimace and reply:
"wELL, with the Queen it just means you have to stay in your room except for basic needs like meals and school."
"Oh, that doesn't sound so bad."
"It does stiinNK (like I'm sure we would above water), but yeah, it's not so bad. I make it look like I'm devastated by them but I know the boredom will pass eventually."

"I would have chosen that over a spanking, given the option. I could just sketch new dress designs or make a quilt to pass the time."
"Now there's a word I know."
"All too well in my case."
"Same here."
Only Capper didn't show some kind of agreement.
"What's that? You weirdos have all kinds of words I never heard."

"They don't do that in that low-class city?"
He hissed, but didn't persue that comment.
"That's when you smack someone's backside repeatedly. It really hurts."
"Sounds like a lotta trouble to me. When you're raised by the streets, if someone wants to beat you, they aren't going to take the time to aim for your ass."
"It's safer, though."
"That would never fly where I'm from. Everyone would think you're soft just for suggesting it. THEN they would say putting so much attention there is skeezy, even for us. Know what I think? Some creep came up with it to get better acquaintence with bottoms of his choosing."
"EEEEEwwww!"
"Just what I think. Not saying it's true, although forgive me for not wanting anything to do with it."

Captain Celerno pats Capper on the rear-end.
"I can tell by your manners that your booty has never been damaged. I keep my crew in line with the cat o'nine tails."
She makes a whipping motion with her talon.
"Wh-psh! ... It's mostly for show since we've been together a while, but they know it can hiss and bite when it needs to. Right, team?"
(squak) "Yes ma'am!"
"On an airship, you cannot just throw someone in the brig. And even though we're pirates, we don't throw crewmembers overboard over nothing. There are too many chores in the treasure-saving business for stuff like that. So what do you do?"
Capper shrugs.
"You make the cat dance up and down on their bottoms, and send them right back to work! Remind me to give Capper a demonstration when this is all over."
"I'll pass."

...

Yay, you and your friends saved the world! Friendship Festival, dance party, happily ever af-

"Mom!"
(shit. You forgot about this.)
You lean in for a warm hug to try to mitigate the motherly wrath.
"You are SO grounded."
Just as you predicted. Oh well, nice knowing you ponies.
"Mom, uh, Queen, um. Queen Mommy..."
*Sigh* "Yes, Skystar?"
"Can I at least watch the end of this song?"
Your mother ruffles your head feathers.
"Alright, but only because you saved our tails."
"Thanks mom, you're the best."
"I know. After this we DO need to talk, my little lillypad."
"Mooommm!"
You laugh with her, and forget your problems for a few more minutes. Songbird's music faded into the next track, and you knew it was time to face yours.
"I'm ready to be banished to my room until the next 'world-threatening event', mom. I'LL probably be Queen by the time you let me out. Are we taking the most direct route home?"
You continue to mope.
"Guess I won't see Griffonstone on the way back either..."
You open your wings for flight. Queen Novo was not one to dawdle.
"You can put your wings away for the time being, Skystar. I want to chat with you right here."
>"Like, here here? It's kind of hard to hear here."
That makes the Queen faceclaw, unsure if it was subpar wordplay or just how the words came out of your beak.
>"Just come with me."
She mutters, barely audible:
"Aughta smack you just for that..."
If she hadn't just told you you were grounded, you would be worried.

Novo walks ahead of you to the edge of the concert plaza. There are benches there, none of them in use. Looking back, you can see the crowd of ponies and other species you left behind, some of them bouncing to the beat. The speakers add a dull backdrop to the conversation that you can pick out if you focus.

>"So. Here we are. Have a seat."
Your mom sits down and pats the wood next to her. You comply, expecting a royal chewing-out since she walked you all the way over here.
"Mom, I am SO sorry for all the trouble I caused."
"Honey, you will be."
"No, I'm not just saying that. I knew sneaking out would hurt you, but I felt it was the only way we could stop the Storm King."
"All I see is a little eaglet trying to cheep her way out of an ass-whuppin'."
(CAW) "Wait, did you say something about a spanking?!"
"I know you heard me. You're right here. I'm right here. You're getting your spanking right here. Get the picture? Or should I make it out of shells?"
"What happened to grounding?"
"Don't worry, I still got half a mind to sit your ass in your room and not let you out until you write an apology letter to everyone involved in tracking you down."
This was going very bad. That would be so humiliating! You can barely write thank-you notes for birthday presents.
Your ears splay even lower, which you didn't think was possible.
"Tracking me down? This is where all the fighting was happening, where else would I be?"
You play it off like it's not a big deal, but it backfires and looks like you weren't scared out of your mind.
"That proves it. You went looking for trouble. You've earned this whupping because of your carelessness, child."
As your mother's claw gently hooks the scruff of your neck and takes you over her lap, you make one last attempt to avoid becoming prey:
"WAIT, mommy! I've got hollow bird bones~ I'm too delicate!"
You even shake your rear to demonstrate. You try to make your eyes look like a newborn hippogriff, cute and worth protecting.
"The part I'm concerned about is your back half,"
She pats your bottom! There's no going back!
"Which is -definitely- strong enough to take a spanking. Don't you remember before we turned into seaponies? Your horse's ass got the lion's share of corporal punishment, which is weird because you ain't some adopted griffon."

(SMACK)
You gasp as you feel the impact of mommy's talon.
"Oh, I have missed that. The sound? The way you kick your legs?"
You blush. She wasn't supposed to enjoy what she was seeing! And there is no way you were spanked often enough for her to clearly remember what you look like over her lap.
(SMACK SMACK)
Great, one for each cheek now.
"I am looking forward to doing these above water again."
(CRACK!) She was picking up the pace now. And "again"? How long until you can move out..?
"Actually, your highness, I (OW!) was (OW) hoping (OUCH!) we could put these 'discussions' behind us."
"Skystar, you have GOT to be less impulsive. Behind us?"
(SMACK)
"Your behind's in front because if I didn't do THIS"
(Ahh!)
"You'd wash up dead somewhere. I don't see that changing anytime soon."
"This was important, mommy! I saved the world, didn't I?"
"Helped."
She isn't spanking anymore. She's just talking.
"-Helped- save the world, what-ever. I didn't see you ..."
You know how mom was saying you were impulsive?
Her eyes narrow as your backside radiates heat.
"Yes, Skystar? What didn't you see me doing? This is gonna be good."
Here goes your attempt at a recovery.
"Oh, nothing, mommy. I was just wondering what you were up to while all this was playing out. You know. World-ending fight, a clash between good and evil..."
"I was busy being a mom."
"Huh?"
"This is not like me, but you actually had me worried. Normally I know everything. What I don't know, I find out. What I can't find out, scares the crap out of me. YOU, little one, have quite slippery scales."
You gulp.
"I was trying to track your whereabouts. I was hoping you disbanded, or maybe were taken as POWs. Our intel said POWs had alright chances of survival, given the circumstances. Do you know how much danger you were in for us to -hope- that you were captured? The Storm King decimated whole armies. What hope did a little friendship brigade have against him?"
"That's just it mom! Me and Shelly and Sheldon saw potential in these ponies!"
"Potential that my military advisors missed."
"Um, well, uh..."
She has you there.

"You had me pulling out ALL the stops, little Princess. I would've been glad to do it if you weren't the one charging into danger in the first place!"
"But... we bonded! We had a pirate captain and a clever rogue. Ponies who would DIE for each other!"
"And what's to say -you- wouldn't be another death in the Storm King's war? Were you willing to die to save a kingdom that chose not to hide in safety?"
"Yes!"
(sigh)
"I respect that you were willing to make that sacrifice..."
She passes a claw over your bottom gently. Back and forth, she traces the curves of your butt in wistful thought. The Queen has probably the most forlorn expression you've ever seen her wear for one of your spankings. Reluctantly, you admit you have a lot of experience to draw from.
"Skystar... you're old enough to make those decisions yourself."
Mommy is-- coming to terms with you and your values?
"Does that mean I can get up now?"
No harm in trying. Your question is met with a
(WHACK)
"Buuut I wouldn't be a good momma if I didn't whoop you hard enough to make you think about the consequences of your actions. You were willing to die? Then getting a baboon's rump for a little bit should be a breeze."
She looks down at you, and even worse, your rear-end. You cross your legs, out of other options. Pony rump or not, this was going to start hurting again.
"Sorry, you sidetracked me."
"No... no worries, Queen Novo!"
Without working in any more of a lecture, the Queen focuses entirely on her task: making you cry like an eaglet 15 years younger than you!
The next whack of her talon makes you uncross your legs, dancing over momma's lap as if it could air out the pain in your hindquarters.
(WHACK!)
As hippogriffs, you were master hunters. You could snatch prey out of a field in the blink of an eye.
(CRACK!)
Speaking of, your eyes could focus on a target and track it through any kind of motion.
(WHACK!)
You feel cursed by your species. You are certain that your mother is making excellent use of hippogriff traits to track your tush despite your best attempts at wriggling away from her corporal correction. She is all too capable of applying the desired punishment to your bottom with her fearsome talon. Crack, crack, crack, her claw continuously made contact, at a pace MUCH too fast for a naughty teenager to withstand.
"WAAAAH!"
The fire on your backside is too much for you, and you cry out. Earlier, each smack made its own distinct jolt of pain on your rear. Now, each time claw meets muscle, the continuous singe of the spanking grows miserably. There is no break, no respite.
(SMACK)
You cry openly and loudly. Tears flow from your eyes as you kick your hindlegs in a painful delirium. You wouldn't care even if Princess Twilight was watching. Your only comfort is an assumption that Serenade is rocking too hard for anygriff to hear.
"OOOWWW! MOMMY PLEASE NOT THE FLIGHTSPOTS!"
She was finishing up the way she always did. You plea meant nothing to Queen Novo.
A flurry of spanks hit you on the undercurves of your rump, both cheeks. It incredbily torturous to be spanked here. Even worse: an aftershock of pain shoots up from sore flightspots every time you bend your legs to take flight.
As the last spank lands on your right flightspot, you wish you had Novo's pearl right here. The pain would persist in your seapony form, you were sure of that, but at least you wouldn't have the awful sensation of spanked skin meeting spanked skin like you will as a hippogriff.
"Just a taste of real tragedy, lillypad. The burden of war should never be taken lightly."
You sob over her lap for 30 seconds. Then you work your way down to crying.
"Thank you, mommy."
You still feel justified in your actions, but the punishment did make you think hard about the alternatives. Queen Novo was right; if you were willing to die you should be willing to get your ass busted.
Novo grabs your right talon and helps you off her lap.
"Now, you were saying you don't want to be spanked ever again?"
"No mommy. I've learned my lesson."
"LessonS. You think I'm so old I would forget?"
Your eyes shrink again, thinking you were in more trouble.
"Of course not!"
"I'm only teasing you. After all this is over, all you have to do is behave. -You- are in charge of when you get spanked. Good eaglets and good seafillies don't get spanked, remember?"
She taps you on your front-feathers.
"Mooom! And what do you mean, 'all this'?"
You were terrified to ask, yet asking your mother had zero chance of changing her resolve.
"You still want to see Griffonstone?"
The first good news all night! Well, other than liberating the last stronghold of anti-Storm King resistance.
"I'd love to!"
(chuckle) "Good. There are some griffons there who would be interested in checking in on your disciplinary status."
Your eyes did that thing again. Novo was liable to make them stuck like this!
"Disciplinary... Status?... Oh no."
End of act 1

---------------------Errata:---------------------

I think poor Skystar will [spoiler]get a visit with Griffonstone spies / intelligence network or their leader(s), and Novo will re-spank her before her appearance to make sure her bottom is adequately red for her apology. There would be at least one other similar visit with another nation, but that might be only referenced rather than written in detail.[/spoiler]

After returning home, [spoiler]she gets grounded until she writes apology letters to a list of beings that Novo's advisers supply. Her letter has to mention how badly the spanking hurt. If the guard for Skystar's room reads it and finds it doesn't go into enough detail, Skystar will recite the revised version in front of the next meeting of Novo's military advisers.[/spoiler]