Big Mac vowed to never visit another mare’s home.

It had been unnecessary, in his mind. As if he would ever wander—as if any stallion in his place would ever even think of it. Still, for her he had made his vow, in front of his sister’s best friends in a small clearing beneath oak trees.

That night he approached the great hill it sat upon, and a terror gripped him. Somepony would catch him. How could they not, for who had ever been seen approaching the gleaming white mansion, its age unknown? But she had given him explicit instructions and assured him secrecy if he followed them.

He passed the gate unnoticed.

The lights were on inside, as if her house were silently inviting him. Big Mac remembered then how he, like any stallion, had wondered with vivid imagination what it was like inside that house—what it looked and smelled and felt like. He felt a strange excitement spread along his body and to the tips of his hooves.

Before he was even halfway along the path he saw her. She had opened her door for him, and she stood there smiling so happily that he forgot all about how elegant and beautiful her home looked and what it would be like inside. He remembered he had made a vow to her, not her home, and an urge to be with her and make her happy overtook him, and he galloped the rest of the way until he was at the bottom of her stoop. They looked silently at each other as the moment seemed to hang in the night air, and then they went inside.

Big Mac had never entered any mare’s home, and the look and the feel and the taste wrapped around him and made him drunk. There were many rooms, and she wanted to show them all to him, but they had the rest of their lives for that. This night they simply enjoyed each other’s company, talking and laughing and all the while somehow blending into one.

For a few weeks they had time only to themselves. But eventually their separate lives called, pinching and pulling at their ears, and Big Mac finally left. It was a strong pain that he felt, and he saw it in her eyes, and thought of it when he returned a few nights later. The light was once more on, and she once more waited for him at her doorway.

This continued and continued. Sometimes she would wait for him, while others he would visit unannounced and knock on her door. As the years passed he grew intimately familiar with her home, all its rooms and hallways. He was allowed access to all of it, except for a lovely built balcony on the back, to which he was not allowed.

Amidst the familiarity he began to find himself longing for the excitement he had felt that first night. He knew she felt the same. Sometimes he would knock and she would say to go away, she didn’t want a visitor tonight. Sometimes she would leave the lights on all night, looking out her window for him, and he would never come. Many nights he would visit and leave disappointed.

He longed for that excitement, and it became a splinter in the back of his mind. Eventually, he began to notice gleaming blue mansion that sat next to the gleaming white one, and he began to wonder what it was like inside.

He thought about it only a little at first, but then more and more.

One day he thought of how he might get inside—not by knocking on the front door, certainly, but perhaps he might climb her back balcony and she would let him in? It wouldn’t quite count then, right?

Time passed, and he became very good friends with the blue mare, sister of the white one.

And one night, while they were taking a walk together, they somehow found themselves at her home, and she led him up it.

Big Mac felt an old excitement, and he felt the splinter remove itself.

They went inside, and he saw how different and yet same it was. She even let him onto her back balcony, and he felt his senses melt and swim again like they hadn’t in years.

He never really noticed the lights on in the white mansion, waiting for a pony who wouldn’t come.