//------------------------------// // I don't want the world to see me // Story: Grounded // by KorenCZ11 //------------------------------// “So, what’s the word?” Soarin asked as he stepped in the front door. I wanted to hide my excitement, but I couldn’t. I’d been waiting to tell him all day and now he was finally home. “Positive!” His whole face lit up. “Positive!?” “Yes!” Dropping all his things at the door, Soarin rushed over and swept me off my hooves. “You’re perfect, you know that?” He pressed his lips to mine for a long minute, but that was quickly interrupted by a little set of hooves landing on my belly. “Pababa!” Prism shouted. I patted his little mane and brought him to my chest. “That’s close, buddy. You’ll be a big brother next year! Can you say, bro-ther?” Prism scrunched his little face up. I thought he might need a diaper change, but he eventually said, “Bro-da!” “Hey! That’s more than close!” Soarin set me down then took Prism from my hooves. “Okay, watch Daddy, alright?” Prism paddled his hooves. “Dada!” “Yes! Now repeat after me; bro-ther.” Again, Prism did that scrunchy thing with his face and said, “Bro-t-ta.” “Bro-ther.” “Bro-tha!” “Yes!” Soarin threw Prism up in the air, and his wings flared out of natural instinct. He spiraled back down and landed right onto his father’s chest. The thought that he might be smart on top of being an athlete choked me up a little, honestly. My boy was something special. “Liquid pride, huh, mom?” I nodded at Soarin before wiping my face. “Well, there’s that. But I always figured that since you’re his dad, he wasn’t gonna be all that smart. But against all odds, he already knows eight words at fourteen months.” And all at once, Soarin’s smile dropped. “Wow. Not cool.” “Na coo!” Prism echoed. He was like if the Goddess gave me the best kid I could ask for. My heart couldn't take it. I took my son from his father and nuzzled his head. “Ya do Mamma proud, Prism. Ya do Mamma proud.” “Mama!” “Yes.” Stroked his little rainbow mane and held him tighter. It shouldn’t be legal to be this awesome. Soarin looked around like there were other ponies in the room. “Dude. Don’t just say that like you mean it! What the hell?” “Hell!” Both our ears shot up. Our eyes darted to the giggling and laughing baby. Oh no. “Huh,” was all Soarin could manage. “Yeah, uh… maybe forget that one, huh, buddy?” I’d hoped that a smile and an eye flutter would work. It always worked on his dad. “Hell! Hell, Mama!” It didn’t work on Prism. This wasn’t my fault, but it was also definitely my fault. With a nervous glance at my husband, “So….” “Careful with the vocab from now on, yeah?” My parents would kill me if they hear him saying that. An irrevocable mistake might’ve just been made. “Yeah.” Silence between the adults in the room permeated our little cloud house. When Prism joined the club and concern washed over his little face, Soarin said, “You, uh… wanna toss him around for a while so he can sleep and we can talk?” I licked my lips. My mouth felt very dry. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.” Parents of pegasi in early childhood who can’t fly yet will take turns tossing their foals around like a hoofball. Any time a pegasus foal was in the air, their wings opened up naturally to glide without prompting or prior training. Some ponies, like Fluttershy’s parents, were afraid of playing with their kids like this, so you end up with low-airtime children and teenagers unable to fly well until later in adulthood. My parents also didn’t throw me around much at first, but I was creative and needed to be in the air. I jumped off of everything and anything that could give me airtime. By the sixteen month mark, I’d freaked my parents out so much, they started throwing me around daily. Clearly it worked because I was flying on my own two months later. “Alright, Prism, go to Daddy!” I raised him in both hooves, reeled back, and launched Prism across the living room. Wings spread out, Prism flapped a couple times to keep the height at the top of his arc, then swooped up just before falling slowly into his father’s hooves. “Good job, buddy!” Soarin exclaimed. The baby laughed and flapped his wings to turn himself around, waiting patiently to be thrown in his father’s lap. Now, being the mother myself, I can see why doing this might terrify parents. Nearly every time Soarin, or anypony else for that matter, throws Prism, I have a mini heart attack and have to restrain myself from trying to run and catch him. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s like, ‘Oh Goddess, he just threw my baby!’ If Twilight hadn’t bugged me to death about reading a baby book specifically on pegasi, there was a chance I wouldn’t be doing this now. However—like mother, like son—I realized pretty early on that Prism would find a way on his own if I didn’t find it for him. “Okay, go to Mommy!” Soarin’s forelegs flexed, Prism’s wings stretched out, and he was in the air like a shot put ball. Little green eyes trained on me, wings flapped once, he dipped. Dipped again, got level with my chest, swooped up, and, finally, landed in my forelegs. Relief washes away all the fear and I bring him close. “Good job, buddy.” After an hour of that and more than one curve-ball baby making my wings shoot out in terror, Prism got too tired to keep flying. He wasn’t all that heavy yet, but the shot put analogy remained on point. Pegasi, thanks to our hollow bones, tended to be the lightest among the three tribes at the 200-250 kilograms range. My husband, as the example of a barely-past-his-prime pegasus stallion at the fittest he could be, was 243 kilograms. As for me, it was 213kg right now since I didn’t lose much of the weight I gained before Prism was born. As per the 10% rule, Prism was born at about twenty-one kilos, and he gained eleven more in his first year. He had much more of his father’s stature than mine, thankfully, but he’s still kinda small for his age. One of the worries about me being so tiny was that my foals could end up malnourished. With another bun in the oven, I’ll need to eat even more than before just to be sure. Maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was instinct, but nothing scared me more than something going wrong. Finally on the couch and with Prism sleeping soundly again, I relaxed against Soarin and he relaxed against me. “I don’t know that I can keep doing this if he gets any bigger.” I rolled my wrists around. “My forelegs are killing me.” Soarin sighed and put his hoof around my shoulders. “You’re telling me. We did weight training with the newbies today. Sorry about the curve balls, by the way.” “Oh, it’s fine. Only had me freakin’ out about him hitting a wall or something.” “I know, I know, but he’s really got gliding down. Pretty good aim too.” “Oh, for sure. Can’t make the power on his own yet, but he’s gonna be exceptional at this one day.” My eyes fell to my belly. I rested a hoof over our new life. “I just wonder if this one’s gonna be the same way.” Soarin’s hoof trailed down ‘till it found mine. “Eh, it’ll be whatever it wants to be. I mean, it’s not like they all have to be racers. Just think of the heart attack you’ll have when one of them works so hard to the point of something stupid! Like, oh, say, tearing a wing?” Made sure I glared daggers at him for that. “Mm-hmm. Sure.” I was kinda mad at him, but he had a point. Prism was my son: what if he repeats my mistakes? I already caught him falling off things on purpose before he was gliding right. If he was like me when I was a foal, what’s he gonna do when he gets older? The worry escaped my lips. “Do you… do you really think he might?” Soarin snorted—I could tell—but he just drew in a sigh. “Probably. Especially if he flies as hard as you do.” I let out a breath. “That’s what I’m afraid of…” He tightened his grip on my hoof: right by my side. “Well, don’t be. We’ll be there, and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen, alright? For Prism and whoever’s growing in there.” Gotta give the guy credit, Soarin’s always had a relaxing effect to him. I made myself a bit more comfortable against my Wonderbolt and rested my head on his chest. He turned the TV on. We eventually settled on a news channel. The new automated weather cycle Twilight tried to implement was getting pushback by the Ponyville Weather Council, and ponies questioned whether she’d forego the senate with her executive fiat. Knowing the mare, I really doubted she’d go that far, but I didn’t really jibe with this issue either. It’d make things easier on everypony, but that’d remove the need for a big weather team and put lots of pegasi out of a job. I survived as a weatherpony in Ponyville for four years, so it almost felt wrong to side with her. No matter what she thought, though, she’d end up asking Applejack about it before making a decision. Head of Ponyville’s oldest family always had a say in these things, but it’s a bit more direct now. Or a lot more. Sometimes I wonder who really makes Ponyville social policy. But that’s another story. It didn’t exactly matter here since Cloudsdale had its own local government, but because there weren’t many TV channels besides those in Ponyville, it was hard to find anything else to watch. Still, I never minded seeing what was going on over there. I should find a day and see them soon. It never mattered what was on the screen, Soarin would watch and comment all the same. He’s a terrible movie partner. “Things sure are changing. Automated weather. How’s that even going to work?” “Beats me, but, you gotta remember: we’re watching ponies talk on a screen from miles and miles away, and we could only do it because she figured out how to make it work. It would’ve taken, like, a network of unicorns to make this happen before.” It satisfied him for a while. Few minutes into the program, he asked, “Have you told anypony about it yet?” Took me a while to figure out what he meant. “Uh…? Oh! Nah, just Mom and Dad. I was going to take Prism to see your parents tomorrow to let them know about the new foal. Well, half your parents, apparently.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. If I get you a phone, will you drop it?” I licked my teeth. Why in the world is he so adamant about his mom? He doesn’t keep secrets from me. It wouldn’t be fair to never know, but… phone… “So long as you tell me eventually, deal.” We shook on it. We kissed on it. And then… we forgot about the TV. “I’m… I’m sorry, Pinkie. I just… I can’t come today.” Her confusion could be felt from the other end of the line. “I guess that’s okay. It would’ve been nice to see you since I managed to get all the kids and Cheese out of the house, and I’m not working today, and I have all those star-thingy movies lined up since you wanted to watch them, but we could cancel. I guess. What’s wrong? Did something happen?” I rubbed at my red eyes and sniffed. It was a wonder that my nose could run for so long. “No, n-nothing happened. Today is just… not a good day.” Silence over the line. “Because I know you’re lying to me, I’ll be there in half an hour, okay?” “Wha-? Pinkie, no! I don’t want to see anypony! I don’t feel good! Today isn’t a good day!” My protests fell on deaf ears. “And you’re not explaining why because…?”     I bit my lip. “Look, it’s personal, alright? I—” She hung up on me! Son of a bitch. A sigh later, I l fell onto the couch. So much for being alone. I should’ve known better. Pinkie is the last pony who’d let me off the hook for something like this. I took the baby towel on my lap and wiped my face again. It was difficult to stop crying; it’d just be worse after Pinkie got here. Even if I left now, she’d find me, and she’d do it exactly thirty minutes from when I called. The fight’s already over. I might as well stay here and wallow instead of falling apart in public after she catches me. What a miserable fucking day. To her credit, she was exactly on time. No idea how, or even who cloud-proofed her for the day, but she was here… when I needed her most. She took two steps in the house before I broke apart and told her what happened. In the long minutes after, while she held me like some foal who’d broken a leg, all she could manage was, “I’m… I’m so sorry.” Maybe it was too late. It’s not as if I’d stopped crying since I told her. But I told her again: “It’d only been a few weeks! This wasn’t supposed to happen! I-I didn’t have any problem with Prism, why…?” Pinkie hugged me tighter, stroked my mane. I didn’t want to admit it, but I really needed that. “It’s okay, it’s okay!” There was a panic in her voice, and I couldn't tell if that made this worse or not. “This… it just happens sometimes, alright? Nopony ever said nature was perfect.” I pulled myself off her and blew my nose again. I felt so… empty. So worthless. He kept showing up in my dreams, he was supposed to be real, we were going to make it happen, and now… and now… “I-I don’t care about nature or any of that shit! H-he’s gone, Pinkie!” “I know, Dashie. I know.” My head buried itself in my lap. Hooves covered my ears. Even beneath everything, I couldn’t escape the light and sound. “Wh-what else was I supposed to do? Wh-what did I do wrong? S-something had to be wrong, right? It was the peppers, wasn’t it? I-I shouldn’t be eating shit that makes my digestive system so fucked up all the time. I… I—” Pinkie scooted over and patted my mane. “Shhh. You didn’t do anything wrong. This… this isn’t your fault.” I took a stuttering breath and tried to look at her through blurry eyes. She had to tell me it was my fault; how else could this have happened? “B-but... b-but that can’t be right! He… I… he was just in here, everything was fine, and…” The words wouldn’t come out. They’d never be enough. Tears flooded, I bawled and wailed, sobbing a mess on Pinkie’s chest. No matter how hard I pressed against her, no matter how tight she held me, it just never stopped. I lost him. He never even got a chance.