It’d been a while since Fancy had walked this far down the bedroom hallway. Usually, there was no reason to continue past the master he slept in, as the only things further down were a few spare bedrooms. However, the morning’s unexpected events necessitated leading an entourage of ponies down the unused halls.
“And here we are.” he announced as he opened the door for everypony to take a peek inside. “Fleur’s room.”
“It’s… really pink.” Vinyl entered with Fancy following closely behind.
The stallion sighed as he took in the old room, regretting having left it alone for so long. The cleaning crew had done a bang-up job as expected, keeping the overtly girly room clean as a whistle, but it certainly didn’t reflect the owner.
“Seriously, Pantsy?” Fleur complained as she stepped inside to look around her old home away from home.
The stallion cursed his lack of preparation. Still, the last thing he ever expected during his morning coffee was Fleur showing up out of the blue, luggage in tow, to announce that she was staying over and there was nothing he could do about it; not that he would’ve stopped her. She and Éclair both had keys and could come and go as they pleased. They simply never took advantage of his hospitality.
“This is absolutely adorable!” Fluffer Duster squealed as she stepped past Fancy. She quickly set the suitcase she was carrying down and fluttered around to admire the childish decor. It was a perfectly workshopped room, right down to the pink and purple toy box resting at the foot of the bed. Said bed bore a flowery comforter covered with shooting stars that would fill most any five-year-old filly with delight. “I’ve never cleaned in here before. It’s all so precious!”
Fleur’s glowering bemusement failed to agree with the maid’s assessment.
“To be fair, your parents stopped asking me to watch you during the day, so keeping your room up to date slipped my mind,” Fancy remarked as he took in the woefully out of touch decor.
“When you can forget you even have a room in your house, you know your place is too big. I didn’t even like any of this stuff to begin with.” Fleur huffed as she tossed her tote bag on the tiny bed. Lowering her head to take a look at herself in her little vanity mirror for old time’s sake, she brightened at the sight of an old friend.
“Well, except you, Moldred Fireclaw,” she amended with an apology. She wrapped the faithfully evil black dragon in her magic and hovered it over for a hug.
Seeing Fleur cuddle the dragon that used to match her height washed a wave of nostalgia over Fancy’s eyes. His thoughts drifted along with them, past the stereotypical girly decor and furniture, settling on one particular toy. An ornate dollhouse Fancy commissioned for Fleur before he had gotten to know her sat in the corner of the room, though it had never been used to play house. In her own Fleur-y reasoning, it wound up serving as a makeshift dragon’s lair for many valiant adventurers to challenge back in the day. It just lacked a few additional papier-mâché defense towers and a pillow cave surrounding it to complete the look. Many a playdate was spent storming the Totally-Not-a-Cottage Castle of Dreaded Despair to save a royal or two. Suede really should’ve been clearer about what playing with dolls actually meant.
“He’s a little on the darker side,” the maid noted as she compared the mean-looking dragon with the rest of the painfully pink room.
“Well no duh he is. Dastardly villains help our plucky heroes shine all the brighter! Dunno if this is genuine love or the captive’s syndrome talking, but you were always the best imaginary enemy one could hope for.” Fleur gave the evil creature a loving nuzzle before turning it on Fluffer Duster. She made it scratch its felt claws at the unsuspecting mare, who laughed at the tickling touch. “He was always imprisoning Lady Faire, at least until she learned proper fencing, and Pantsy was even good for a passable evil voice. Dark posh can be very properly menacing.”
“I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not,” Fancy considered aloud, only getting a wry smile from Fleur in response.
“I thought his name was Blackwing the Ravenous?” Vinyl asked while dodging some swipes from her sudden foe. Looking over it, she noticed a poor, patchwork sewing job marring the malicious, obsidian creature. “And what’s wrong with the tail?”
“Just a little battle damage. And no, Blackwing is this one,” Fleur corrected as she reached into a tote bag with her mouth and pulled out another black dragon plushie, but with crimson eyes instead of Moldred’s yellow ones. “I didn’t come over here a lot, so he’s one of the rarer encounters in my O&O stories. Blackwing is trouble for sure, but if you find yourself going up against Moldred, you’re really in for it. He serves up dragonfire death—” Fleur reached over to the dollhouse, cracked it open with her magic, and removed a small tray with round stickers out of the miniature oven, “—and cookies! Evil cookies!”
Fluffer Duster giggled as the little plushie waved his felt claws menacingly at his victims. “I know I’m the smallest one here, and I know I can’t squeeze into that adorable bed. Should I go find a more suitable room for Fleur to stay in, Sir Fancy Pants?”
“What? No! This is my room and I intend to keep it that way!” Fleur announced as she boldly leapt onto the bed, only for whatever she was going to say next to be interrupted by the frame collapsing under the sudden force of a full-grown mare. Fancy’s heart skipped a beat from the crash, but from Fleur’s flush face and grumbling, the only thing that splintered along with the wooden frame was her pride.
“Might wanna lay off the gelato there, Schlurr,” Vinyl snickered as the grumpy actress extracted herself from the mess of bedding.
“Taller mares just weigh more, Vy.” Fleur coughed, trying to swallow her embarrassment as she shook away the bed skirt like a loose piece of toilet paper. “I might have to move a mattress in here…”
“Then I will seek out a good bed from one of the unused guest rooms,” Dapper Dandy announced from the hallway. He levitated the final suitcase and stacked it in the corner with the others without stepping inside. “Would you lend me a hoof, Miss Fluffer Duster?”
“Right away, sir! I’ll just wash these and store them for you.” Fluffer Duster said as she gathered up the sheets and blankets from the remains of the bed. Fancy thanked her as the maid expertly folded the bedding into squares in mere seconds and rested them on her back and wings. She offered a polite curtsy and followed after the older butler.
After a few moments, Fancy turned to his sudden house guest with a small frown. “It would be easier if you simply slept in one of the guest rooms. I don’t mind it at all, but just how long were you intending to stay if it warrants pilfering a bed?”
“I dunno. As long as it takes, right Vy?” Fleur threw a foreleg around her friend, giving Vinyl a knowing look. When met with silence, Fleur lightly shook the mare, forcing a sigh out of her.
“Right. Operation Friend Ship is a-go and everything,” the DJ cheered halfheartedly.
Fancy blinked. “Operation Friendship?” Fancy puzzled at the name.
“No-no. Three words: Operation, friend, and ship!” Fleur shouted with enough enthusiasm to cover the missing half. Fleur brushed a hoof over an unseen canvas before her with the large sway tossing some of her mane onto Vinyl’s face. “Setting sails on the winds of camaraderie! Boldly going where lots of ponies with more friends than Vy have already gone before!”
Fancy looked between the two mares showing very different levels of enthusiasm towards the idea. “If you don’t mind my saying, your shipmate seems a little hesitant to embark,” he remarked as Vinyl blew some of Fleur’s errant mane out of her face.
“I didn’t say it was necessarily a very large vessel. It just needs to be seaworthy, and not solely crewed by yours truly.” Fleur flashed a model smile and flourished her mane, allowing even more to fall on her shorter friend’s face. “And I am here to make sure this little sea turtle comes out of her shell just enough to make a few friends other than me.”
“I thought you were going for navy puns. Since when did I get switched to a turtle?” Vinyl asked from behind Fleur’s muffling mane of hair.
“Because a ‘salty sea dog’ would be way more excited,” she stated matter-of-factly, earning a suffering groan of regret at asking in the first place. At the rate Vinyl’s mood was sinking, they’d have to bring a submarine to drudge her back up to the surface.
While it was all out of left field, Fancy certainly wasn’t against Fleur’s presence in the mansion. Anypony else that could help Vinyl feel more at home was a welcome addition in his eyes.
“Well, I better get settled in. You two mind lending me a hoof?” Fleur asked, looking down to her follicle-covered friend.
“Not at all,” Fancy responded with a quick salute. “Just point me in the direction you want, captain.”
“Get your mane out of my face, and I’ll consider it.”
“Done!” Fleur released her friend from her grip and began digging through her tote bag. After a moment, a scowl crossed her face as she rattled around it, looking for something. “Oh great. I thought I triple-checked that before I left…”
“What?” Vinyl asked as she popped open a suitcase herself.
“There aren’t any blank storage crystals in that suitcase, are there Vy?”
“Nope. Fancy?”
Fancy eyed the edges of the suitcase trying to find evidence of anything besides clothes. “What do storage crystals look like?”
“Just, you know... Crystals? Gems? Shiny rocks?”
“Hmm. Rather obvious when you say it like that,” Fancy thought aloud as he poked around the pockets for anything solid or sharp. “Unless they are parka-shaped, all I see in this one is winter wear.”
“Well, there aren’t any here either.” Fleur sighed as she closed the tote on the remains of the bed. “Vy, could you please check to see if you have any small ones I could have? I know you probably have plenty from the ESPA, but I won’t need your chunky archiving ones.”
“I might, or at least have a few candidates I can cut. What type are you looking for?”
“Emeralds would be good enough, but I don’t think you’ll have those lying around.” Fleur tapped her chin until a thought occurred to her. “I usually use citrines at home.”
“Citrines? You know the ESPA uses orange garnets for storage, right? Why would I have citrines?”
“Again, garnets are overkill. I need swift and elegant for the Showcases, not storage out the flank. I remember you had a few of those at your apartment before, right? Could you go check?”
“Like, right now?”
“If I need to go home, I’d rather do it while it’s still light outside.” Fleur turned to her friend, fluttering her eyelashes and plastering on an aggravating pout. “Pweety pweese? I’ll pway you bwack.”
Vinyl hissed through gritted teeth in disgust, cringing from the cutesy talk. “Fine. Just stop doing whatever that is. It’s somehow worse than your puns.”
“Thank you so much, Vinyle!” Fleur, as Lady Faire, thanked her friend with cheek kisses. “Take all the time you need, as long as it is not, how you say, overly excess?”
“Right away, m’lady.” Vinyl trotted out, Fleur waving goodbye as if Vinyl was leaving on an airship. After a parting air kiss and another audible groan from Vinyl, Fleur shut the door, satisfied with her performance.
“If it’s that important, Fleur, I can start unpacking while you look for the gemstones,” Fancy offered as he began unfurling Fleur’s carefully stowed cold weather clothes.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I actually have plenty of them right in here.” Fleur moved a black sheet in her tote bag, revealing a small dragon’s hoard of orange gemstones nestled underneath. Opening a side pocket, she produced another citrine with a glyph inscribed in it. “Including this one. It has a sound dampening ward on it. Pretty neat, huh?”
Fancy’s brow furrowed at the puzzling sight. “I suppose? But why would you—” Fancy began to ask, but stopped when Fleur placed the ward on the door. It activated, covering it from top to bottom in a yellow flash before becoming translucent. The only sign that there was anything magical was a slight warbling blanket of distorted pulses in the surrounding air.
“For a little privacy, Fancy Pants.” Fleur quickly rapped on the door, hearing no audible knocks sound from the wood. “There, perfect!”
At once, Fleur wheeled around, her face crumpling in rage as she grabbed a pillow from the bed remains next to her and smacked him across the face. The force of the blow knocked Fancy off of his hooves and sent his monocle sailing across the room. Before he could shake the stars from his vision, a barrage of pillowy blows came, showering the room in feathers.
“Why. Didn’t. You. Tell. Me?” Fleur screamed as she furiously pelted him over and over again.
“Fleur de Lis! What in blazes is—” Fleur cut him off by swiftly shoving a pillow into his mouth.
“Don’t you ‘Fleur de Lis’ me! You’re lucky we’re related or I’d be beating you with that bag filled with a hundred citrines right now!” Fleur cried as her nose flared from her heavy breathing. “I’m so mad at you, but then you realized what was wrong and saved her from being on the streets when I was too scared to ask her about it and… I’m so sick of this!”
Dislodging the pillow from his mouth, Fancy quickly deduced that Vinyl had revealed her situation to Fleur. “How much did she tell you?”
“Everything. Ev-er-y-thing! And you know what? She blames herself for it all! She wasn’t careful enough or she shouldn’t have opened up about her problems. Why didn’t I know? I’m her best friend! She’s the sister I never had! I just… I-I just—” Fleur’s anger gave way to sorrow as she collapsed under the weight of her tangled emotions.
Fancy tapped his nose, ensuring that the pain wasn’t from a nosebleed and turned over to attempt comforting the distraught mare sobbing at his side. “I’m sorry, Fleur. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t my place to say.”
“No! You should’ve told me!” the mare wailed and slammed her leg on the floor in frustration. “I know you hate it, but you’re supposed to be my brother! I thought you were better than this!”
“Fleur, that’s—”
“Don’t lie to me!” Fleur roared with fire in her eyes. She flinched from her own words momentarily before doubling down on her anger. “And don’t give me that ‘it’s complicated’ horseapples either! It doesn’t matter! You don’t keep things like this from me!”
“Yes I do, Fleur! I had to!” Fancy gritted his teeth at the memory of all the ponies he talked to over the weeks after the Festival of Flakes. He felt the oppressive vice of responsibility fall around him, or fate weaving as Luna called it, as it yoked him to the poor mare. “I tried, Fleur. I tried. I tried and tried and I tried so bloody hard to help her! To get them off her back. For heaven’s sake, I was trying to get them to shift the blame to you by the end of it!
“But those jackals wouldn’t hear any of it! It was so easy to pass the blame onto a ‘miscreant’ like DJ Pon-3 than to blame the Kingmaker of Canterlot or the up-and-coming Fleur de Lis. Then, after I found out just how dire the situation was, I realized the last thing she wanted to do was get anypony involved. When I ran out of options, I did the only thing I could think of and confronted her. She didn’t confide in me willingly, so I chose to respect her desire for secrecy, even if I thought it was a grave mistake.”
“So you knew it was a bad call and you still let it happen?” Fleur seethed as she slammed a hoof down on the floor.
“Yes. Yes I did.”
“You told me you always make the best calls, Fancy! What are those cheap crowns on your flank for anyway? How could you let this—”
“The best call was to let her make the mistake, Fleur!” Fancy shouted over her, silencing the mare with kingly authority. “Do you think I wanted this? If she told you everything, then you know that she feels as if she has no agency around me! That I stripped her of her rights like some indentured servant after making an offer she couldn’t refuse…” Fancy nearly choked on the words as they left his mouth. “If I told anypony, I’d be playing right into her expectations. I couldn’t breach her confidence, so what was I supposed to do? She wouldn’t accept any help otherwise. If you know her so well, then tell me, what would she have said if I tried to give her anything?”
Fleur opened her mouth to roar back only to bite down on her tongue and snort derisively. “No hoof-outs…” she finally mumbled in defeat.
“Precisely!” Fancy spat, mentally rebuking himself for losing his temper.
After catching his breath with a cough, Fancy scanned the floor for his trusty monocle. Spotting it against the wall, he shakily reached out with his magic, struggling to get a firm grip on the cord. Cursing his feeble horn under his breath, he shambled to his hooves and swiped it from the floor. He pulled his polishing cloth from his coat jacket after sitting back down, but dropped the lens. A pink aura caught it before it could hit the floor again. Looking back to Fleur, she offered a troubled smile as she held out the monocle.
“This is really getting to you, isn’t it, clumsicorn?” Fleur ruefully joked as she levitated the lens in front of Fancy.
Fancy took a deep breath to calm his nerves and took his faithful monocle in his hooves to begin polishing it. “Despite what you may think otherwise, yes I am. I haven’t felt this out of my element since your aunt died.”
“She was your mom, Fancy.”
“Yes, but around you, the word ‘mother’ can be… confused. I love her deeply, just like how I love you, Fleur.”
The mare forced a laugh and sighed. “You have a strange way of showing it for somepony so against being called brother,” Fleur complained as she dragged a hoof along the carpet.
After another pause, Fancy sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
Another awkward pause sat in the room, the only sound was the quiet pulse of the noise suppression field and Fancy’s frustrated breathing as he worked on his monocle.
“Fine. Come here you big lug.” Fleur jerked Fancy closer with her magic and leaned against his back. For a moment, he stopped and craned his neck to get a better look at his half-sister before returning to his work. The stallion hunched over his monocle, cleaning every speck of dirt and minute streak from the lens, as the lonely mare savored any wisps of familial closeness she could glean.
“You know that she’s scared, right?” Fleur whispered.
Fancy paused his work. “And I suppose you’re here to protect her from me?”
Fleur shifted her weight, trying to find a more comfortable position to rest her head on. “Do I need to?”
“Don’t even joke about such things, Fleur. I promised your mother I would help her in any way I could.”
“Why?”
Fancy took a shuddering breath and looked up from his monocle at nothing in particular. His thoughts drifted to Luna and the path she asked him to walk. “Frankly, I don’t know why anymore. I thought it was because it was the right thing to do, but maybe it’s ultimately just my self-serving guilty conscience. What I know for absolute certain is that Vinyl doesn’t deserve any of this. She’s a wonderful and talented mare who I am thankful is your friend.”
“I know. She’s like a sister to me, Fancy. She’s been a better sibling to me than you ever have.”
Fancy closed his eyes as the old knife twisted inside. There was no room for an apology, only bitter acceptance of reality. Fleur pressed harder against his back, only for Fancy to keep looking away as he placed his monocle back on his face.
“You want to know one of the reasons she didn’t want to say anything? She was worried that if she told me what was going on, it’d drive a wedge between us.” Fleur chuckled as she nuzzled Fancy’s back. “So stupid.”
Fancy licked his drying lips before asking the obvious. “Was she right?”
Fleur sighed as she drew herself from the floor. “I’m gonna figure that out. Even if it did, you’re always so distant anyway, it’ll have just fallen right through the rift,” she answered with a sad smile. She extended Fancy a hoof and helped him from the floor. “I meant what I said. I’m going to help her make all the friends she needs. Whether you end up being one of them or not doesn’t matter to me.”
“That’s wonderful to hear, Fleur.” Fancy grinned softly with genuine relief at the news. “She deserves all the friends she wants.”
The young mare grimaced and shook her head as new tears began to form. “Why are you like this? You can be one too, just like anypony else!” she pleaded as she gripped his hoof tighter. “I want you to have friends! Real ones! Not that noble trash you put up with, but ponies that care about you instead of what they can take from you. I want us to be family! I want my brother!”
“I know you do.”
Fleur clenched her teeth and threw Fancy’s hoof out of hers in disgust, and used it to wipe away the tears she bothered shedding on his account. She stomped over to the door and began dispelling the ward with her magic. “If it comes down to it, Fancy, I will choose her. I won’t give it a second thought.”
“I understand, Fleur. That’s probably a wise decision.”
Clopping the sides of her face with her forehooves, the voice actress wiped the anguish from her face and bubbled back with a smile. “Great! Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you start hanging up those clothes in here?” She pulled open the closet’s folding door, only to see several filly dresses and a vest hanging. “Oh! Maman was wondering where my junior Season Scout vest got to. Could’ve sworn I’d gotten more badges than this.”
Taking the opportunity, Fancy followed suit with diplomatic decorum. “If memory serves right, I believe you fashioned some fake ones out of the cushions of the dollhouse’s couch.”
“Oh yeah. Moldred was too big for that thing anyway.”
“Fleur, he was too big for the entire living room you shoved him into,” Fancy noted with a chuckle. “I had to stitch his tail back together after it tore on the doorframe to the dining room when you were pulling him out of his lair before bed.”
“Dapper would’ve done a better job at fixing it,” Fleur complained as she rolled her eyes.
“Agreed, but he was already asleep, so you were stuck with my woefully inadequate magical needlework.”
Fancy looked at the dragon plushie and the patchy scar ran down the side of his tail. He was surprised he’d managed to maintain a magical grasp on the needle at all at the time. Though it was only a little stuffing, the filly was crying harder than she had when she’d sprained her leg. Even when she had gotten older and good enough to mend it properly, she never fixed it.
“Speaking of dragons,” Fancy remarked as he turned to Fleur. “You might want to let Vinyl know you found Blackwing’s citrine trove there before she wastes too much time digging around for unnecessary gemstones.”
“Oh, ponyfeathers, you’re right! I need to wash up!” Fleur grabbed a few citrines out of the bag and quickly searched the room for a good spot as she stammered to herself for a good excuse. “Here! Just start putting the rest into that little desk’s drawers. I’ll figure out what to do with them once we get a workspace I can actually use in here.”
“A new bed and a desk? My my, how demanding of you, your ladyship. Anything else I should procure for you while you're away?”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est, Sir Pantsy?” Fleur gasped as Lady Faire at the incredible insult. “I trouble myself, gracing you with my presence in your humble little mansion, and this is how you thank me? Non non! This is tribute owed to saving your sorry flank with Vinyle, yes?”
Fancy laughed as he levitated the tote over to the desk and began putting them away. “Of course. I apologize for speaking out of turn and will ensure it is done, posthaste.”
“That is what I was in the thinking you should be saying!” Fleur stomped and harrumphed before striding out of the room. With her nose held high, the noblemare daintily slammed the door behind her for dramatic effect.
Fancy chuckled at her antics as he busied himself with stashing the lady’s contraband into the desk before they returned. “Love you too.”
At some point, Vinyl was going to have to stop living out of boxes. After opening several, still unpacked cardboard eyesores, she had finally stumbled across her enchanting collection. She had tossed all of her crystals and gemstones inside a single box while scrambling to meet her move-out date to nowhere. Not that they had been sorted much before the move, usually scattered about the floor with the unfolded laundry for her to trip over. Regardless, it was irritating going through all of them. Part of her was tempted to let Fluffer Duster sort them for her, but that wouldn’t be right.
“Huh. I actually do have some emeralds in here,” she said as she extracted three small gemstones. Two of them were uncut, but that could easily be sorted if Fleur needed a specific design to maximize the manaflow. There were no citrines to be found. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she could swear she gave Fleur anything citrine that she had lying around the apartment to get rid of them.
“Hey Vy!” Fleur interrupted, popping her head around the doorframe to Vinyl’s room. “Guess who found a couple of citrines lying around her bag?”
“You did?” the DJ guessed flatly.
“I did!” Fleur trilled as she held a selection of small, cut, and vaguely familiar orange gemstones in front of her.
“Are these the ones I gave you a few months ago?”
“These are the ones you gave me a few months ago!”
“So, what you’re saying is,” Vinyl slowly turned to meet her friend’s stupid grinning face. “I wasted the past thirty minutes searching through boxes and trying to find gemstones I already gave you?”
“It was more like forty-five,” Fleur corrected without missing a beat. “Oh, hey! Are those emeralds?”
Vinyl smacked her face with her hoof in exasperation while she stepped back to let Fleur get a better look at the gems. Borrowing Vinyl’s jeweler’s loupe, she began inspecting the emeralds more deeply, giving the DJ a better look at the back of her friend’s head. “Have a run-in with Fluffs?”
“On my way here? No.”
“Then what’s with the feathers?”
Fleur blinked as Vinyl plucked and presented one of the feathers to her friend. “Oh that? Just a little pillow fight with Pantsy. No big deal.”
“What the—You were supposed to be unpacking!”
“We unpacked a lot of stuff, actually. More than you have at least,” the larger mare bragged as she noted the stacks of boxes. “But I also wasn’t going to let a couple of old, perfectly good filly pillows go to waste. Broke the bed, so might as well finish the job, right?”
Vinyl gave up and chuckled while shaking her head. “Never change, Fleur.”
“I wouldn’t dare!” the actress countered with palpable indignation. “Why change perfection?”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Vinyl said as she twirled the loose feather in her magic. “Did you win at least?”
“Good question.” Fleur hummed for a second as she pondered it for a few moments, bobbing her head back and forth in what must’ve been a raging, internal debate. “I think we both lost.”
“Really? How’d you swing that?”
“With copious amounts of violence, as you can see,” Fleur answered as she tussled her mane to shake loose any feathers still caught in it. “Made a mess of things that we’ll have to pick up later.”
“You could always have Fluffs clean it up.”
“Nah. I think this is one I’ll need to do myself if I can. But now that you mention it, we should totally hang out with her!”
“It’s the middle of the day. She’s working…” Vinyl trailed as her eyes slowly drifted towards her friend with an iron glare, “… kinda like we should be doing?”
“But it’s the middle of Saturday! I don’t wanna do anything now.”
Vinyl took a sharp breath while staring at the crystals she had been digging through. “The whole point of me finding these stupid crystals for you in the first place was so you could work on your ESPA thing before it gets too late!”
“But the pillow fight was so exhausting! I wanna relax and start Operation Friend Ship,” Fleur whined while clopping her hooves together like a filly begging for just one more cookie.
“You know what? Fine,” the DJ surrendered, closing the box and hovering it back against the wall. “I haven’t had lunch yet anyway. Let’s go see if she’s up for grabbing a pizza or something.”
“Yay, pizza! The perfect siege weapon for busting down the first gates to friendship!”
“I think you’re mixing metaphors there, Fleur. Also, you’re better off with a birthday cake being shot out of a party cannon,” Vinyl corrected, but instantly regretted mentioning it, seeing the “O” widening on Fleur’s excited face like the owner of said festive weapon.
“Oh my gosh, that sounds awesome! Can we—”
“No,” Vinyl interrupted as she scooped up the blank crystals with her magic and put them in a small sack for her friend to take. “You can get into more than enough trouble by yourself without ballistic party favors.”
“You’re no fun, you know that?” Fleur rolled her eyes as she took the gem bag in her magic.
Vinyl smirked as she shrugged her shoulders. “One of us has to be. We’d never get anything done, otherwise.”
“I guess that’s true,” Fleur agreed, and quickly wrapped her hooves around her friend and pulled her into a deep hug. “I love you, you spoil sport!”
“Enough, Fleur! C’mon, I’m actually hungry!” Vinyl complained while trying to wriggle free, but the larger mare wasn’t having any of it. It was at times like this she wished she had a better understanding of teleportation to escape Fleur’s vice grip. Vinyl placed a hoof onto Fleur’s chest to push off, but stopped struggling as she felt the unsteady breath of her friend at the back of her head and a desperation in her embrace. “Fleur?”
The mare cleared her throat trying to regain control. “Just, give me a moment, okay?” Fleur forced herself to say through her cracking voice, not letting Vinyl see her face. She gripped tighter still as Vinyl felt her shoulder dampen. “I’m just… really excited for pizza.”