//------------------------------// // August 20, 2015 (Tail Flight) // Story: You've Got to be Foaly Kitty Me: Should Equestria Be Home? // by Josh Crapo //------------------------------// How long has it been since I slept like this? Since the tenth of July. I haven't slept here for five and a half weeks. If it's not counted that I woke up on the eighth of this month, that would be almost two weeks. Not only last night did I get to sleep with Josh, but I slept with him in his house. Wind Rust comes here early to see if Josh is ready to go back to Equestria, which wakes me up. "Oh, Wind Rust." I yawn. "How're you today?" "Fine. I'm just looking for Josh." "Wind Rust, it's only seven in the morning. If you need to, come upstairs and sleep with us." "Oh, I'm wide awake. Had a little cold water to get me up." I chuckle a little. "I just got up." Suddenly a voice comes from the living room groaning. "Josh, is that you?" "Got to go, hold on." I come into the living room. "No, it's just Tail Flight and Wind Rust." Creaking occurs upstairs. "Great. I didn't need everyone up." I fly upstairs to see Josh indeed got up. "Tail Flight? Where were you?" "Downstairs. Wind Rust came in the door and your mother woke up to our conversation and thought it was you." "Next time we sleep like this, if ever, we've got to do it in the loft." I look up above the closet. There it is. The one place I remember. It's easy to get up and down there now that I've been able to fly. Now that I think about it though, I do remember having to use that ladder to get up there as a cat. "Hey Tail Flight?" I look at Josh. "Do you know where your feather is?" I rub my hoof on my chin as I think. Perhaps, I put it in the loft. I fly there to check. Right next to the bed, there's a bunch of stuff, but it's anything other than a feather. As I look harder in the little pile, I notice something small and black, what looked like a black dyed praying mantis. I touch it to check if it's soft or stiff, in which it's soft... and a little tickling. Then it hits me. That's my feather. Now i remember what happened last night. I have to tell Josh. "I found it!" "Good. Bring it down." I grab the feather and hold on to it until Josh levitates it out of my hoof onto the floor. I look to Josh, who is still looking to see if the feather is placed just right. "Perfect!" Josh gets on the computer, presumably ready for something a little trip of memory lane as it seems. When he gets on program that looks like its icon is a blue carton, I don't know what he's going to play. "Never thought I could actually listen to this once again." What's he talking about? Suddenly, as I assume that he loaded something he saved, I see something I've never seen before. "Hey Tail Flight, I might want to be downstairs for this. If you want to play the song, press enter on my keyboard." Josh flies downstairs out of my view. I look on the keyboard and see the word "enter" on the middle right of the main group of buttons. I press the button that says "enter" just after getting Josh's headphones on. What the result is is listening to something truly beautiful. I've listened to music like this before, but not to this good of quality, nor has it been something that Josh made himself. Before I know it, I start to cry at the beauty of Josh's work. This has never happened before until now. I know Josh's work is good, but it has never made me burst into tears like this. These are warm tears too. Not like the ones when Wind Rust woke up. After the song ends for the seventh time, I decide to stop it, but just restarted at a certain spot. Well, I'm just pressing "enter", but then I see another button that's the longest. I press it, and the music stops. Josh flies up the stairs again and lands near his computer. "Heard you crying from all the way in the living room. That wasn't just your reaction to that song I made." I see a tear in Josh's eye. Suddenly, he picks me and hugs me, which I respond to by hugging back. I hear a knock on the door, which Wind Rust responds immediately. "Coming!" As he opens the door though, a greeting comes from a very familiar voice, almost as if it came from a dream Josh and I had. Josh gasps. "Luna!" Josh flies down the stairs with me tight in his chest. "Ah! Joshua! It seems you've made it home. I figured this would be where your siblings live." "Well, this is where I've lived before going to Equestria. I'm just staying here because I was waiting until noon today before I went back." I think to when I was looking near the corner of the screen where there was a clock. It said somewhere near 11:15. "Do you know what time it is now, Josh?" "I do. I'm confident that it's quarter after eleven. Josh's computer said it was 11:13 or 14 or whatever." "Lucky for Josh, there's going to be a choice. Either I can get him to Equestria if he wants to go now, or he can use the method from last time he ended up in Equestria to get there." "I'll go with you, Luna. But before we go..." Josh puts me on the floor, looks at his wings and starts to have a weird look on his face looking to his right. Perhaps there are more feathers on the right than there is on the left, but just by one. As it looks like Josh is thinking about my right wing, something floats to his right out of his right wing, a small, blonde feather. He turns around to face me and Wind Rust. "Tail Flight, Wind Rust, let this feather remind you of me. I'm sure it will." I come to Josh and hug him in his left leg. "Thanks Josh. We wouldn't be where we are now if it weren't for you." "Don't thank me. Thank those who pulled the senior prank back eighty days ago. The senior prank is almost as impactful as it was when I played Sim City for the first time. Days like that are almost impossible to come by with the average person. If it weren't for the senior prank, I would not've had you all in my life, I would not've become a Wonderbolt. Heck, I would not've even grown wings because of this." Luna levitates the door open. Oh god. I'm tearing up again. I know what's going on. Just as Josh helps open the door, without hands mind you, I let go of his legs as memories with me and him overflow around me. I could still hear all the music we listened to at night playing in my head. I could still smell the odor of Josh coming back from his jog from so long. I could still see the light on at the neighbor's house as I laid between Josh's legs. I could still feel the very rhythmic motion I felt when I slept on Josh's stomach. I could still taste the sandwiches Josh made us all back before we went to Maine to meet Wiretap. I turn away having so many tears run down my cheeks, even when Wind Rust tucks me under his wing. "This is not goodbye. We could always talk with my UCD on me. You guys can have my phone. I won't mind." I see the door sliding closed as Josh and Luna lift off the top of the staircase. I feel wet in the shoulders now as the door closes before us. All that remains of Josh is this blonde feather that lays in front of Wind Rust. I still feel the wing behind my back as Wind Rust raises a hoof off the floor. Suddenly, I feel that same hoof on the back of my neck. I sniffle a bit. "Goodbye, Joshua... Crapo." I proceed to hug Wind Rust getting hugged back.