If the day’s best part was that you weren’t blue anymore, you could bet that it had been one of those days.
What does it even mean, one of “those days”? thought Thunderlane as he stared at the ceiling of his room from his bed. There were crumbs of bread on the mattress, and the curtains had been drawn to fend off the sunlight that had been sparse all day anyway. Maybe it’s another way of saying “I don’t want to talk about it”? Or “I’d rather not invent a name for it”? He threw a rubber ball in the air and watched it hit the ceiling. It hit a small round area where the paint had worn off, consumed by years and years of contact with a rapidly moving hard object. I’ve lived most of my life in this room, watching that ceiling, throwing this ball, he thought as the yellow-black toy dropped straight towards his face.
He caught it right above his nose with two hooves. Its shine was long lost, but the matt surface was still hard as rock. You could place it in between a thick door and a frame and brake the door that way, and he had, although that had been a while ago, in a different house, in a different time. In a different family.
I wonder what father is doing right now?
The question came to him just like the ball had a minute ago: straight to the face. This time, he didn’t get his hooves between in time. He blinked at the impact, and the ball fell on the floor, rolled under the bed. He bent down instinctively, trying to reach it, but it was already beyond his grasp, resting neatly against the wall. He could see it staring at him from the darkness. He snorted and pulled himself further over the bed, only to fall on his back with a groan.
“What are you doing?”
Thunderlane looked at the door. Rumble stood there, eyeing him with curious amusement. There was a small suitcase by his side.
“Hi, kiddo,” said Thunderlane, standing up. “How was camp?”
Rumble shrugged his thin shoulders. “It was cool. Swam in the lake. Learned a few tricks.” There was a faint twinkle in the purple eyes when he said that last part.
“Wanna show me?” said Thunderlane.
The little colt gave this a thought, or at least a pretty good impression of one, and nodded approvingly. “Sure. Got to unpack first though: mom’s orders.” He gave a lazy kick of his hind leg to the suitcase.
“Let me give you a hoof with that,” said Thunderlane, walking to his brother.
“Okay,” he said, smiling brightly. After Thunderlane had picked up the bag, he continued, “Seriously though: what are you doing?”
“Uh, nothing,” he said, walking to Rumble’s room. “Dad’s ball just rolled under the bed. I was trying to get it back.”
The colt rolled his purple eyes. “Duh, not that. It’s the end of the season. Shouldn’t you be on the track?”
Thunderlane entered the room farther down the corridor, put the bag on the bed and opened it. “The season’s ending was moved. Dash had… she was sick. Really sick.” He started emptying the bag. Most of it was warm clothes, but there were some more interesting items hiding there, too. “What’s this?” he said, lifting an envelope from among the woolly socks. It was sealed with pink wax.
Behind him, Rumble shuffled his legs, his aura of casual coolness suddenly shimmering. “It’s nothing, just something. Give it here.” He made an attempt to grab it. Thunderlane’s wings were faster.
“Smells sweet,” he said, holding the envelope lightly between his feathers. “Got it from mom?”
“Yeah, she sent it yesterday, but I didn’t have time to open it so I brought it here,” said Rumble quickly. He seemed to be avoiding biting his lip.
“Oh? Then why it reads ‘From Mirth’ in the back? In pink.”
Rumble froze. Only his eyelids moved, and they narrowed down dangerously. “Bro… Watch your step. Watch it.”
Thunderlane toyed with the white envelope for a few seconds longer and then handed it to his little brother, who snatched it immediately and locked it into his drawer, the same one where he kept his yellow-black rubber ball. Thunderlane raised an eyebrow at that.
“Hey, no offense.”
Rumble closed the drawer and glanced back at him, and even though he now strived to hide it, the wariness wouldn’t leave his eyes. “We’re cool. It was just something I got from… somepony.” He trotted to the bed and started unpacking the bag.
Thunderlane quietly watched him work. “Mind telling me why it’s unopened?”
“Nope.”
There was a pause.
“Why is it unopened?” asked Thunderlane.
“‘Cause I haven’t opened it,” answered Rumble flatly while shelving a book.
Thunderlane sighed. “Why haven’t you opened it, then?”
"Not the right time.” A scarf found its place on the rack.
“And that would be…?”
“I dunno. Someday. On the next Hearts and Hooves day. Maybe.” A binder full of drawings went quickly into the shelf. Rumble zapped to the suitcase, but there was no more stuff to move around. Thus he stood still. The blush was only a heartbeat away, Thunderlane could tell.
“Okay,” he said kindly. “Want to show off those new moves now?”
Rumble breathed out. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get outside!” He rose to his wings and rushed to the corridor.
Seems like I’m not the only one with a love life in this house anymore, thought Thunderlane as he followed him. I wonder how long it will last for him? That was an ugly thought, and he knew it right before he tasted it.
“Did you go see her?” asked Rumble in the hall.
“Huh?”
“Rainbow Dash,” continued the colt. “You said she was sick. How is she?”
“She is… recovering,” said Thunderlane, flashing a short smile. Outside, the sky was as grey as ever.
“Did she break a wing?”
“No no no, nothing that serious. Just some flu, she’ll get over it quick enough.”
“Then why didn’t she come today?” asked Rumble, tilting his neck. “You always talk about how important the season’s end is for the team.”
“Hey, cut me some slack, will you? She didn’t come, end of the story. You keep your wax seal letters, I keep mine. Deal?”
All that came out a tad sharper and quicker than he had intended, and it showed in every inch of Rumble’s flinch.
“Sorry…” he muttered, looking at the grass. “I was just worried about her…”
Thunderlane smacked himself mentally a couple of times. “No, don’t be sorry. I just left my idiot gear on again. Figures.” He wrapped a brotherly hoof around Rumble, shaking him a bit. “You can punch me if you want.”
Rumble chuckled at that. “I’ll knock you over with my stunts before that!” With that, he rose a few feet above Thunderlane’s head and, after some concentration and rapid breathing, did the most mediocre aerial loop Thunderlane had ever seen. It made his chest swell with pride.
“Awesome!” he exclaimed, rubbing Rumble’s head as he landed. The colt beamed, and for a moment, everything was great. Then the hammer fell.
“Should we show that to Rainbow? I bet she’d get better in a flash!”
Thunderlane’s smile twitched. “Aaahh, no. I don’t think we should. Let her sleep it off, that’s for the best.”
“Oh, come on! You said she’d be fine in no time! Just a quick visit, please?”
“No.”
Rumble stopped jumping. “What’s wrong with you? Did you two fight again?”
Thunderlane was very quiet for a while. “What?”
The colt blinked. “Well, you know… Like the time you fought behind our house. You woke me up then.” He was now drawing circles in the ground, apparently immersed in the task. “I remember ‘cause you didn’t go to the drills for a week after that. I didn’t say anything then ‘cause mom told me not to.”
The memory sprang from the locked chest In Thunderlane’s head and splattered all over his mind, dripping repressed feelings and dark intentions. It would take him hours to clean that up properly, but in the circumstances, turning a blind eye would have to do.
“Oh, that? Nah, it was just some adult stuff. We got over it years ago, years I say. No need to dwell on the past.” He gave his best smile to go along with that. “It’s nothing like that now, anyway.”
Rumble glanced at him from amidst his circles. “But you still don’t wanna see her?”
I’d wish to see her even if that was the last thing I’d see. Or hold. Or kiss. “There’s some more… adult stuff going on between us,” said Thunderlane quietly.
The colt gave this a thought. “Like, sex?”
“Whoah whoah, where you heard that word?!” blurted Thunderlane, his ears flaming.
Rumble gave him a weird look. “Eh, where did you? Mom told me all about it. What’s the big deal?”
“What exactly did she tell you about it?”
There was a definitive sense of improvisation shining from Rumble’s face as he sought the words from a week back, before he had gone to the camp. “It’s like… hugging and kissing, but in a weird way, and you have to be smart and responsible, and the first time is really special so it needs to be with somepony special, but even if I’ve met somepony there’s no rush and anyway I can always come to talk her about it. She said that bees and flowers do it, and the school will probably tell me more about it eventually, and ‘really there’s no rush’.” After a while he added: “I never got what it actually is, though.”
“You’ll know when you’re older,” said Thunderlane with a smile.
“That’s what she said, too!”
“She would, wouldn’t she? Now, that front flip was a killer, but how about a back flip… doubled?”
And so the world moved on. It moved all the way to the late afternoon, where it took the form of a quiet evening with the family. Thunderlane, Rumble and their mother were by then leafing through the numerous photos of laughing foals, breathtaking views and, in a few cases, misplaced lens covers. For very paradoxical reasons, those were the ones that stirred the most vivid comments and explanations. Thunderlane was relaxed, as he by all rights ought to be, considering how much effort he had to have spent to get into that state where a little fuzzy but still recognizable picture of a distant rainbow wouldn’t stab a needle through his heart. It still tingled a bit, and he was sure his mother asked for another picture a tad faster than she otherwise might have.
Besides that, Thunderlane had a genuine shot of falling asleep before two o’clock that night. That is, he had right until the moment when Dash and Fluttershy appeared at the front door.
“Hello,” said Fluttershy, smiling that faint yet insanely alluring smile of hers.
“Up for a drink?” said Dash, conspicuously politely.
In a smooth, ponderous motion, Thunderlane closed the door. Dash and Fluttershy stared at it, then at one another, and Dash very nearly knocked the door again when they heard an argument erupting inside. There was a female voice, paused by what could have been Thunderlane talking, after which the female took over again. After a few fast lines had been exchanged, they heard somepony marching for the door, although even years later Dash could’ve sworn it sounded more like a platoon at the time. They took a step back right before the front door slammed open, revealing Thunderlane’s mother. She didn’t look mad; to the contrary, she looked extremely calm. Nonetheless, Dash and Fluttershy took yet another step back.
The older mare eyed them for a moment. “I understand you two wish to take my son for a drink.”
To Dash’s surprise, it was Fluttershy who answered. “Yes, we would. If that would be alright with you?”
“And why is that?” continued the mother.
“It’s kind of a private issue,” said Dash. She did her best not to flinch when the bright green eyes darted to her. “Uhh, could we talk to him now?” she said, shifting weight between her legs.
There was a pause like during which storms gather strength. When the mother spoke, her voice was satin wrapped over steel.
“A week earlier, perhaps still yesterday, I would’ve consented to your request. But I find that lately I’ve turned a blind eye too often and too easily in what comes to my son’s… affairs.”
“Yeah, the thing is that he is already a big colt–” started Dash.
“That is not the point,” cut in the mother. “For the past summer, I've witnessed him in turns fly in the hills of happiness, only to roll down with his wings clipped. One week he is drunk of bliss, the next he can’t get up from the bed. You two have turned his life into an emotional rollercoaster, and I’ve had enough of watching it from the side! Thunderlane is my son! I have just as much of a right to look after his welfare as you two combined!”
By the time she was finished, Dash and Fluttershy had pressed their flanks together, and their ears were glued to their skulls. The mother sighed deeply, and whatever was left of her steam fled along with that.
“I don’t think we have ever been introduced properly,” she said, in a somewhat warmer tone. She extended a hoof, which made the two younger mares jump a bit. “My name is Thunder Cloud.”
“F-Fluttershy,” said Fluttershy, shaking her hoof. “P-pleasure to meet you.”
“Rainbow Dash,” said Dash, barely shaking.
“My apologies for the theatricality,” said Cloud after letting go of Dash. “It shouldn't have hit you like it did.” A flash of embarrassment travelled over her face.
“Oh, it’s quite alright,” hurried Fluttershy. “We probably deserved it.”
We did? thought Dash, but managed to keep the question to herself. “Uhm, so, could we now see Thunderlane? We actually came to invite him out, to talk some things over.”
“Oh?” said Cloud, her eyes glinting. “Where were you heading?”
“To the Blueberry Inn,” said Fluttershy before Dash could stop her.
“Cheery’s place?” continued Cloud. The amazed looks of the two ponies made her add: “We go way back, she and I. For a while I even worked there, when the place was new and she needed a few favors to keep things moving.”
“That’s so interesting,” said Dash, smiling as widely as she could. “Anyway, it gets kind of crowded there in the autumn evenings, so I guess we should hurry if we want a table there…”
Cloud waved a dismissive hoof. “Oh, nonsense. The least I can do to compensate for my rudeness is to ask Cheery to give us a table in the back. Trust me, she’ll be more than happy to be able to pay back an old friend.” Without waiting a response, she turned and said: “Thunderlane! Bring my purse, we’re going out!”
“There’s really no need for that,” hurried Dash, her wing unfolding. “Your offer is very kind, but I–we think this moment should belong to just the three of us. Right, Shy?” She nudged Fluttershy with a hind leg.
“Ah, yes, that might be for the best… If you don’t mind,” she said from the cover of her mane.
Thunderlane, who had been listening around the corner with baited breath, sighed and walked to the door.
“Mother… They have a point,” he said, looking Cloud in the eyes. “We can handle this alone. I can handle this alone.”
Cloud gave her son a faint smile. “I know you can. That is how I brought you up, after all. That’s why I’m mostly coming along to see an old friend.” A sharp intake of breath from behind her drew her eyes like a magnet. “Alternatively we can talk here,” she said to Dash who had barely gotten her mouth open. “There’s tea and biscuits waiting just for that. But I’d rather use this excuse to pay a visit to Cheery, if that’s all the same to you.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Dash automatically. Fluttershy echoed something similar immediately after.
Cloud gave them a small smile too, and looked at Thunderlane again. In his eyes, a mixed combination of awe, fear, and annoyance rested.
“Now… Would you be a dear and get that purse for me? Oh, and tell Rumble he isn’t allowed to leave the house, but can stay up late to read comics or whatever he wishes to do. And make sure you forget the key of the cookie box on the table. That’ll keep him busy for the evening.”
***
This is not what I had planned, thought Dash half an hour later. Cloud had been correct about Cheery alright: she had offered them a homely little room separated from the rest of the bar, a big round table just for three of them. First drinks were on the house, too, and even Dash had to admit that that was impressive. This is a set-up, I know it in my bones. Yeah, she might be in the bar for now, talking with Cheery, but give her a split second and boom, she trots all over you. Reminds me of Spitfire on a bad day. She took a sip of the cocktail the name of which she couldn’t remember, and leaned closer to Fluttershy.
“You okay with this?” she asked.
Fluttershy bit her lip. “Well, she did get us a table, and drinks, and left us alone afterwards. How could I not be okay with that?”
Dash snorted. “Yeah, but she is still here. Gosh, I’m sure she is watching us right now, through a hole or something. And how thick are these walls, anyway?” She knocked the blank wallpaper with a hoof. It seemed to cover stone, but facts never stood a chance against a healthy dose of suspicion.
“If she comes, we can always politely ask her to leave,” reasoned Fluttershy.
Dash shuddered at the thought. “I’ll leave that to you, then.”
Thunderlane pushed past the heavy curtains that lead to the bar. Without looking at either of them, he settled with his drink on the last empty seat on the table. The quiet murmur carrying from the other room filled the space sovereignly for a moment. It was already dark outside, so a score of candles served for lighting. They were a far cry from the scented, colored type of the Heartmend Cafe: thick, white, and as bright as possible. Proper candles: efficient and functional, thought Dash. Just like this meeting is going to be.
“First things first: what’s the main problem?” she said, looking alternately at the other two. They seemed puzzled by the question, so she went on: “I mean, there’s clearly a problem here, so if we want a solution, we first have to agree what shape of a hole it should fit. Makes sense?”
“I don’t believe it works that way,” said Fluttershy carefully.
“Oh? Why’s that?” said Dash, leaning on her hoof.
“Because love is not a thing,” explained Fluttershy. “It’s many things, or what holds other things together. We don’t have a problem, we have… complications.”
Dash gave this a thought. “My way sounds easier, so let’s try that first.” She turned to Thunderlane, never minding Fluttershy’s opening mouth. “Why you wanna marry Fluttershy?”
The question hit him to the face like a brick. “Because I love her?” he managed.
Dash narrowed her eyes. “Why is there a question mark there?”
“There isn’t!”
“Prove it!” said Dash, hitting the table. “Prove that you love her so much you can’t live without her!”
Panic filled Thunderlane’s eyes.
“Dash!” cried Fluttershy. “Stop that! Can you prove that yourself? Can anypony?”
Dash looked at her, and in the eyes like furnished ice she saw a recollection of every moment they had spent together, of every fleeting touch, of every unspoken word. They all screamed at her that Fluttershy was wrong, that you could prove love like that existed, that it was something so fundamental, so true, that it went beyond knowing. But then a little voice within her whispered: But if it can’t be known, how can it be proved?
“No, Fluttershy… She… does have a point,” said Thunderlane, apparently with great difficulty. His eyes were lost in the bright golden drink, and the bare sight of his shoulders made an iron bar appear flexible. “It just so happens that I may not have been completely honest with you.”
“With the marriage?” said Fluttershy confusedly.
He nodded. “The thing is… The reason I married you… I thought, or hoped, or prayed that, that…” He swallowed hard, seized his drink and emptied it with one gulp. As the glass hit the table, he said in one go: “So I’d be closer to Rainbow because I love her so much it makes me feel wretched and scared and happy beyond sanity!”
It got very quiet after that. It got so quiet that Dash only realized that they had dwelled in the kingdom of silence after she broke it with her breathing, which she had been holding. I think we found the problem, she thought. Said with some cutting irony, that would’ve made an excellent punchline. As it was though, it only rang hollow between her temples.
“Can you ever forgive me?” asked Thunderlane from Fluttershy.
She sniffed and wiped a stray tear off her cheek. “There’s nothing to forgive. You shouldn’t ask forgiveness for what you did for love.” She sniffed again, turning her face away. “Least of all should you apologize from me. It should be the other way around, really.”
“What are you saying?” said Thunderlane. “You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me who should–”
“I used you, too,” sobbed Fluttershy. “From the day we met in your room, months ago, and talked about models and eyes and love. You let me see that you loved Dash, no, that you adored her, and I knew right then that I shouldn’t interfere… but I did.” Under the table, her hoof sought Dash’s, and found her. She felt stiff as a plank. “You wanted to have ‘fun’ with him,” she said to Dash, “with the three of us, you wanted it so bad… So I closed my eyes and dived, never minding what my instincts told me, what my heart told me. Love is a tangle even with two ponies. With three it becomes… intangible. I knew this, but acted regardless.”
Dash stared at her shivering figure, then at her hoof that almost absentmindedly grasped hers. She fumbled for her drink, but found that it had emptied of its own initiative at some point. From the corner of her eye, she could see Thunderlane sagging even worse than Fluttershy did. Dash felt like standing in between two vortexes, and each one was pulling harder than the other. In her mind, furniture was flying around like leaves.
“Okay, time out, time out,” she said, pulling her hoof away from Fluttershy to nudge some life into Thunderlane. They both raised their eyes carefully at her. Dash exhaled, grateful for the tenuous calm. “What… are you two on about?” she said, as slowly and clearly as she could manage.
“Can’t you see?” asked Fluttershy, baffled. “We both love you so much that we pretended to love each other!”
Dash’s expression was a masterpiece. “What?!”
“Was it all a fake?” asked Thunderlane, glancing at Fluttershy, who blushed immediately.
“No!” she wailed, tears running over her face. “I could never fake moments like what we shared during the summer! That wasn’t what I meant! I meant… I mean… I don’t know…”
Thunderlane looked at her with heavy eyes. Had it all been a fake? Had he used her just to get closer to Dash? At what point had he stopped, if he had? Asking for the truthful answer was asking for more trouble than the questions themselves could ever cause, and in the end they would still be half-truths. What, then, made them any different from lies?
“The truth of the matter is that I proposed you, not Rainbow,” said Thunderlane quietly, still looking at Fluttershy, although he couldn’t help but to steal a glimpse of Dash. She had turned her face away, and Thunderlane didn’t dare even to guess what that meant. “Maybe I did it for the wrong reasons, but at the time, I didn’t have many reasons to begin with. It felt right. The words were there. I just let them go.”
Dash shook her head slowly. “I don’t get any of this. We all get along great, right?” She looked up, her face a yearbook of lost emotions. “How can it all end up in somewhere so… sad?”
“An overload of bliss?” suggested Thunderlane, smiling against all the odds. “I honestly can’t say if I should be panicking or rejoicing right now.” He chuckled shortly and tensely. Its effect on the other two, or lack of one, made him lean a bit more towards the option of flaming panic.
“You may be right,” said Fluttershy, not sobbing anymore. “Your proposal crossed the line that I had feared would wait us at the end of this. But it might’ve as well been me who took the last step, in one form or another,” she hurried to add. “This was nopony’s fault.”
“Is there fault at all?” asked Dash. “I still don’t get what exactly is up with you two.”
“Oh?” said Fluttershy, frowning. “What’s up with you, if I may ask? Why did you fly away the other night in the Cafe? Why didn’t you come to the drills today?” Abruptly, she stood up. “Why did you ever think a threesome would be a good idea?”
“Hey, I didn’t hear you complaining at the time! Or in the times after!”
“Not the sex,” hissed Fluttershy, fighting against the blush. “I meant the whole affair! Didn’t you know how Thunderlane felt about you, how he still feels about you? Or didn't you care?”
The last part tied Dash’s tongue to a knot. “Whah? I… he…” Her eyes snapped to Thunderlane. “He said he was cool with it!”
Ah, yes, the time in the showers, recalled Thunderlane. Back then they had been planning how to lull Fluttershy in bed between them. An opportunity like that could incite such self-deception, even from an otherwise stand-up stallion. In the end, he had for a while believed himself that it could be just for sex.
“I thought I would be,” he confessed. “I really did.”
“Why I get the feeling that all the arrows end up pointing at you?” said Dash. “You lied to me then, you proposed Shy: you! This is your fault!”
“Yes!” cried Thunderlane, practically jumping off his chair. “You're right! And you know what? You wanted to be right!” Memories rained down upon him like hails; glimpses of expressions, pieces of sentences; a late night in a backyard, with the words “The Best Weather Team in Equestria” sloshing in their cider-filled circulatory systems, washing away the restraints. “You remember that night?” he went on. “The night we kissed slightly longer, slightly deeper, in the moonlight? ‘The night which should never end’, I told you, but which should ‘live the day and the one after, all the way to the end all days?’”
By now his front legs were on the table, and Dash stared at him like he had turned into a changeling. She remembered that night alright. She had spent countless hours trying to forget it, but of course she’d remember it like yesterday. Well, take that as a yesterday half of which had been spent on partying, hard, but still, she remembered the ending of it clearly. It had been the third time in her life when she had said “no” and really meant it.
“S-so?” she said, eyeing him like a rabbit eyes a fox. “What about it?”
“How could you remember that and think I could be ‘cool with it’?”
“You were drunk…” muttered Dash.
“So were you,” he said, setting his front hooves on the floor. “It didn’t cloud your judgment. Something else did, the day you asked me to bed two months ago.”
“I think we all know what that was,” said Fluttershy, not unkindly. She was standing next to Thunderlane, facing Dash in her chair. They all looked at one another, and Dash got the nasty impression that she was now in the opposition.
“Oh yeah? So it’s my fault now. ‘A sex maniac mare ruins another relationship, read it all with bit and a half’, that sort of thing?” She ground her teeth together, awaiting a response. None came. “Well I ain’t buying it! It’s not my fault if I’m the only pony here who can keep their emotions in check, even if that’s only ‘cause I got the biggest libido!”
“Can you keep them in check?” asked Fluttershy, a bit less kindly. “Can you really say that with a straight face?”
Dash threw her hooves in the air. “Seems so!”
“And the thing the other night was… what exactly?” asked Thunderlane. “Mind you, we’re still awaiting an explanation about that.”
“I… That was justified! I thought you tried to push me away!”
Two pairs of eyebrows raised in unison. The sight of them whipped Dash’d tongue two gears up.
“Okay, that sounds crazy, I’ll give you that, but I had some caps under my belt and the waiter had just finished his degree on bitching and oh boy was he the top student of the class!” Now the eyebrows lowered, but way too much. “Okay okay, fine, I overreacted, but for a good reason!” She crossed her front legs over chest.
“You were so scared to be left out…” began Fluttershy.
“...That you left?” finished Thunderlane.
Dash gave that her best stammering. It wasn’t really what she had had in mind, but suddenly she couldn’t quite put a hoof on what that would have been, exactly.
“Actually, that does make sense,” continued Thunderlane. “You never give up in anything, right? You have to be the first, the best, the fastest there is. A second place is a disgrace to you. So when you thought you couldn’t win, you quit.” Right after he had finished, he knew that something was wrong. “...But you never quit, either?”
“Not unless it hurts too much to see the prize fall out of my hooves,” whispered Dash, her body suddenly all limp.
Fluttershy gasped. “You mean… I was that prize? The prize for which you’d quit the game if you lost?”
“I think we found the problem, after all,” said Dash, her voice crawling by the floor. She looked Fluttershy in the eyes. A poet would have said that the air between them shimmered from the weight of that link.
They rushed into each other’s embrace and met over the table, their wings unfolded, keeping their hind legs in the air, although even those were trying to wrap over one another.
“I love you, Shy,” sobbed Dash. “I love you so friggin’ much…”
Fluttershy, for reasons that were beyond reason, did not shed a tear, did not utter a laugh, but held her tighter than she would have held a world hanging on the precipice of damnation. A poet would have shut their mouth at the sight of them, giving room for the music, preferably to a cellist, who by all rights should have belonged to the moment, at least in Thunderlane’s mind. He wanted to hear that so bad he actually heard it, in his mind. It took him awhile to realize that what he was actually hearing didn’t stem from his fantasies, but from the bar. And the insane thing was that it really was a cello playing there. He trotted past the curtain, drawn by the charming melody and pushed by the vague thought that nopony should be witnessing two souls embracing each other like that, especially since the moment was turning even more intimate by the second. On the other side, his mother was waiting for him.
“Ah, you came just in time,” she said, signing him to come sit by the counter. “I’m sure you know Octavia. Apparently she grew bored of the selection they made her play in the Heartmend Cafe lately. Too sweet for the ears, I hear.” She said something to Cheery, and soon Thunderlane found himself with another drink before him. He let it be for now, for the music floating in the air seemed fully capable of satisfying all his needs at the moment. It was that good.
“You’d think she belonged to Canterlot, a genius like her,” said Cloud quietly, watching the grey earth pony with a raven mane. The Inn didn’t have a stage to boast, but they had cleared away some chairs in one of the corners, and the hypnotizing music, along with the graceful movements of the mare, compensated wonderfully for the lack of proper setting. She was drawing an aura around herself, a dome the breach of which would be a capital offense. “Mind you, she’ll be flying from here sooner or later. Better enjoy her while you can.”
“Maybe it’s for the best, for everypony,” said Thunderlane calmly. “All good things must come to an end. Otherwise they become ordinary, then boring, and finally we lose interest in them completely. Isn’t that what they say?”
Cloud payed a sideway glance at him. “Do you believe them?”
The music played on. For the most of the audience, it was perfect, but for a pony who stood just close enough to the curtain that lead to the room in the back, a stray moan, perhaps a tad more fervent than one might’ve expected, mixed in with the notes. Thunderlane lingered in the middle of an equilibrium composed of the heart of harmony and the forge that both gives birth to that harmony and opposes it to the very last beat. He stood on the brink of brinks, on the edge of equinity itself. And he answered:
“I believe Rumble is old enough for the serious flying practices. The camp did him good there, I can tell. I’ll take responsibility of it myself to see that he gets all the training he wants and needs. Those dreams he has about joining the Wonderbolts one day? They don’t fulfill themselves.” He seized his glass, and with the most discreet move he could muster, drew another set of heavy curtains over the passage. The cello ruled the room sovereignly once more.
Cloud waited for him to finish his long sip before she spoke. “That’d mean you’ll be spending more time at home, yes? He has school, after all, and you have the team.”
“I know. It’ll do good for us both. I haven’t spent time with him as I used to, lately.” Another sip, another pause.
At the end of it, Cloud wasn’t smiling. “It appears he met a filly in the camp,” she said, carefully watching his face.
“Did he tell you about her?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cloud rolled her eyes. “As if he needed to. I’d say it’s quite serious. In the scale of a twelve-year-old, at least.”
“What do you want me to do about it? The topic came up earlier today, and I was handsomely denied the privilege of asking any questions. Or speaking in the wrong tone.”
She smiled at that. “We need to do nothing. These things have a tendency to settle themselves, in time. Wouldn’t you say the same?”
There was a trap there, and not a very subtle one. Thunderlane stomped on it without an ounce of remorse. “No. He may be young, but he’ll grow faster than we know, and sooner or later he’ll have his first heart-break. When that happens, we need to be there, and we need to be up to date. ‘These things’ don’t handle themselves, just like the weather doesn’t. Pretending otherwise will only get you soaked or burned.”
“So you think we should watch over him more?”
“Depends on what you mean by that. I said we need to be up to date, not on top of him. That’ll only make it worse. For now, we’ll see what he himself makes of it, and by Hearts and Hooves Day we might have a better picture of the bigger scheme of things. Or a more blurry one. All we can do is hope for the former and prepare for the latter.”
Cloud smiled some more, and emptied the rest of her glass. The last drop of it glowed with a very peculiar shade of blue. “You’re right about one thing, for sure. Children do grow faster than we know.”
Thunderlane turned towards the makeshift stage and saw that the music had stopped at some point. Octavia was having a break, drinking water while talking with a couple of stallions in the front row. From beyond the curtain, wet, sucking and squelching sounds danced into Thunderlane's ears like tiptoeing thunder.
That is only because we have to, he thought and hoped that the music would start soon enough.