Necessary Love

by Zurock

Chapter 22: Glow

Twilight smushed her face into her pillow, rubbing back and forth as she clutched the bag of fluff with her hooves. The harder she pressed the more gently her awareness of the waking world returned, filtering in as a mellow whistle instead of a clamoring orchestra.

The door to her room thumped with another round of knocks; unfortunate confirmation that the first set of thuds which had disturbed her hadn't been phantom noises conjured by her dissipating dream.

"Hello? Twilight? Wake-up call!" Gallowayo's voice punctured the door. "Are you up?"

Rolling over in her bed the unicorn rubbed her eyes open and accepted the morning light. Its diffuse glow filled the room softly, washing in from under the curtain which blocked her balcony. Her room was on the backside of the Passion's Embrace, meaning she always caught the sunrise but never the sunset.

Her horn peeled back her covers and she sat up, heavily wiping her eyes again while she yawned. Her mane was in disarray, the purple hairs springing and bending at every possible angle, and her tail was likewise crooked and frayed. The night hadn't been filled with vacation-worthy sleep but maybe that was to have been expected for an initial effort somewhere so new.

She scooted out of her bed, lowering her hooves to the floor with a cautious blindness as if she might miss her target. Standing at last, her body rocked until her sense of balance caught up with her and she blinked rapidly to wink away her final threads of sleepiness.

"Twilight?" More knocking. "Sorry if I'm being any trouble, but I can't go until I'm sure you're up."

Awake, Twilight began to make for the door but she halted after just one step.

An unorderly stack of books rested on her night stand. They were loaners from Gallowayo; several more tomes from him sat upon the dresser. He had pre-supplied her room with a few of his favorites, mostly scholarly works on philosophy but also a poetry collection and some books on the Carriaggean Islands. Because last evening she had been so swift out the door in order to see Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, she hadn't found the chance to have divulged to her guide that she was already familiar with half of the books that he had supplied. But it wasn't a big deal since the other half were all new to her, and the very fact that he had personally selected reading material for her was a touching gesture regardless.

Last night while in bed she had grabbed a few of the most interesting ones and hoofed through the pages leisurely. Those chosen books were now the uneven tower on the night stand; apparently she had been too tired to have put them away neatly after she had finished. Now that her clearer mind saw the pile she had left behind she felt like a slob.

Quickly her horn picked up the borrowed books and rearranged them, thickest on bottom to thinnest on top, with bindings flush. There; that was a much better show of appreciation.

Twilight went to the door, and her magic unlocked and opened it.

Gallowayo set his knocking-ready hoof down, just slightly ill-prepared for the door's retreat.

"Oh, you are up! Good morning," he greeted.

"Good morning, Gallowayo," she answered, bearing what was a very much dazy morning smile.

Seeing such simple but warm light from her, especially surrounded by all of the charming tatters she still had in her mane and tail, as well as the adorable laziness in her meager squint, put the stallion on a shy defense.

"I, uh... I hope I wasn't a bother," he said, ducking his eyes occasionally. "Did you sleep alright?"

"Fine, I think," Twilight politely nodded. "I'll admit it wasn't perfect, but that's probably just because it's a new environment, and one very different from what I'm used to."

"Oh?"

Her memory recreated every little nightly sensation that she knew so well from home, coating her with the restful serenity that she was used to, and she explained, "Canterlot and Ponyville both have things that go on at night, but for the most part they are places that SLEEP. Everything gets quiet, and cool, and gentle."

Her eyes popped open wide as the cozy blanket of memory unfurled and thrust her back into her mildly ragged present.

"But here? Here it stays kind of hot the whole time, and there's a salty moisture that lingers in the air, and all through the night there was this pounding noise... I think I just wasn't ready for all that."

Gallowayo leaned his head back and cast a glance towards the ceiling. Hesitantly he spoke, "Pounding? Well... your room IS right below Venus and Vesuvius' suite, I guess."

"What?" She probably hadn't heard him correctly. "I meant... the ocean. The waves beating on the shore all night."

"Oh... OH!" he shrunk in embarrassment. "O-Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't, um..."

"I guess it really fades to the ears so that you don't even hear it after awhile, huh?" laughed Twilight. "Not yet for me, though. What were you talking about?"

"It, ah...," he choked, constructing his response like he was laying down the tracks as the train was coming, "... they-... Venus and Vesuvius... stay up late, a lot of nights... so they-... they might make some noise... in the room above you; if you hear something, that-... that's what that is." He had a tenuous grip on his frowning smile.

"... Oh. Alright," she accepted.

Odd advice – she didn't recall having heard any disturbances from above – but she didn't let the unusualness of the moment bother her. Her guide had put forward many good efforts for which she felt appreciative: his greeting yesterday, how he had carried her bags, his praise of her essay, the books he had loaned her, this very wake-up call, and now even his silly bit of informative counsel. Her friendliness bloomed fully on her thankful face.

And like had happened several times before Gallowayo mirrored her amicable energy right back at her, his presentation flipping like a coin. His nervous side crashed down, and his confidence turned up.

"So!" he projected a bold front. "This is your wake-up call. In thirty minutes a light breakfast will be served in the dining area for you and your friends, and then in another thirty minutes it'll be out to the beach for some fun."

"Ah, right! Great! Thank you very much," the mare replied.

Automatically her mind set to work building an impromptu schedule for maximum efficiency. Thirty minutes to get ready; no problem. A half-turn aside let her peer back into her room as well as into the bathroom. She'd need towels, her brush from her bags-

"Will you be able to find your way to the dining room again?" Gallowayo kindly interrupted her runaway thoughts. He hadn't seemed to have read her inattentive disregard as anything rude. "Or should I return in thirty minutes?"

"Oh, I think I'll be fine. Thank you," she mustered an apologetic answer between handling her divergent thoughts. She also tried to give him more attention, compensating for her mistaken rudeness.

Content, he further asked, "Anything else you need then? Or shall I be off?"

"Mmm... no. I think that's all."

"Right. Then I'll see you later!"

After an equal goodbye from Twilight, the island pony backed away from the door and pivoted so he could head down the hall.

"Or...," Twilight's own surprised voice suddenly popped up.

Many items moved through her mind but one had unexpectedly stampeded through, roaring for attention. She heeded the call, and her ordinary morning concerns she let drop.

"... actually... Gallowayo: question."

"Yes?" he said as he turned back towards the doorway.

There were no variations of her query to consider, but she let the question quietly bake in her mouth for a bit anyway before she uttered, "... How much do you know of Isla Equufera's history?"

"Not terribly much," admitted the stallion without a fuss, "though I'm told there isn't much to know right now to begin with. It's Venus and Vesuvius who REALLY dig into that. Any questions, you might want to ask them."

"I already asked them plenty at dinner last night," Twilight explained.

"Oh." He stumbled somewhat into his old nervousness. "Then... why ask me-...?"

"I was just wondering what you knew," she said plainly. Her curiosity still suffered the open wounds of incomplete knowledge, but it seemed sadly that he couldn't help mend them.

Or he couldn't help directly and immediately, anyway. Perhaps, though...

Gripped by intrigue she appealed to him, "Are you not particularly interested in the history?"

"History is a fine subject, I guess," Gallowayo responded, returning to his braver self, "and this island's history in particular I imagine must be pretty interesting. It's just..."

There wasn't a doubt that he knew what he felt, only difficult doubts in how he wanted to say it.

Slowly he related, "... Since I've been here... I've really been more focused on... philosophical studies, and... creative expressions, and the like. You know... deep thoughts and... seeking ways to define the unquantifiable and to describe the unqualifiable. Less of the empirical studies."

Twilight understood him clearly, and actually found his reasoning quite engaging.

"I see!" her enthusiasm flashed brightly. "So you've been throwing yourself into more artistic studies?"

"Yeah," he affirmed. "Several different things: music, poetry, performance, painting..."

Her ears focused on him but his words pushed her eyes past him, and they spied the framed artwork that hung on the wall opposite her door. It depicted some manner of blackened void, and floating in the darkness was a portal of sorts. Warm and red it was roughly in the shape of a heart, though it looked like it had a stem growing from the top? Through the portal were faded and indistinct vistas of the island itself. Reaching over the gap of washed-out scenery from either side were two ponies whose loud colors made them pop, obviously the main subjects of the painting. They appeared as if seen from a high angle, and their outstretched hooves clasped together in the very center.

"Painting?" she wondered aloud. "Then... are the pieces hanging around here yours?"

"Oh, heh... yeah. All of them," Gallowayo rubbed the back of his neck. Not really mortified but with more than a little queasy glee he defended himself, "Venus and Vesuvius, they-... they flatter me by hanging them everywhere; they really like them. But, actually, they're just experimental stuff."

He grew thoughtfully serious, and his eyes lifted away from Twilight before turning inwards.

"I've been immersing myself into these pursuits since I've arrived. Trying to... CAPTURE... the feelings I've experienced, if that makes any sense." His awareness woke up to his guest again. "Some things are just hard to express with regular words, you know?"

"That makes perfect sense to me," she told him, delighted to listen to another student's unique take on everything, especially the mysterious and special experience that the island supposedly unlocked.

"It does? Oh, phenomenal!"

Relief bandaged any bites of insecurity that still bothered him, and he spoke hopefully towards her, "I'm really looking forward to hearing what you think about everything a bit later on." A different kind of embarrassment stung him for just a moment; one welcomed and shyly excited. "A-After you've been able to... s-share the full experience with me."

Twilight twisted a glance at the misplaced familiarity that briefly crawled all over the other pony. It almost felt like he might have suddenly spouted an endless chain of vulgar euphemisms. It was a stupid and outrageous thing to forecast, and she didn't know where the sensation of potential indecency had come from. Quickly she rattled her head to slap a proper mood into her brain.

"Well, I'm looking forward to everything too!" she confirmed for him, though in a hidden way also for herself. "I want to learn and see everything I can while I'm here! There's so much that tickles my fancy already, and it has to be quite a place if everypony that comes here eventually chooses to stay!"

"I'm so glad to hear it!" Gallowayo nearly gasped. "I really think that if you approach it with an open mind then you'll come around to why everything we have here is so amazing!"

A fresh idea came to her because of his assertion, and Twilight floated out the optimistic suggestion, "Maybe, then... you might be able to help me along with that?"

A different idea from hers sparked to life in the other pony's head, but he dared not utter the shyest peep of it. Besides, she had been quite obviously setting herself to elaborate something further, not to solicit his desires.

She explained, "I'm really interested in uncovering some of the history of this island, as a starting point at least, and Venus told me that she keeps copies of all the old historical records which relate to this place. Do you know where I could find those records?"

"... I do...," the stallion suddenly became wary of answering, jarred from his previous train of thought. "Are you, uh..."

"I have permission to review them already," she immediately tried to assuage him. "Venus just thought I might want to dive into it later on, but I don't see why I couldn't start right now! A morning on the beach is nice and everything, but honestly I'd rather not go swimming when there's something so much more productive that I could be doing!"

Every word further she delivered about her prospective morning added another layer of excitement to her. Just the mere thought of reading archived copies of papers which were hundreds of years old was enough to throw her into a thrilled fever.

Actually, it was kind of cute how it worked her up. Some would have saw it as an odd thing to get so enthusiastic about, but for a pony like Gallowayo the intersection of 'odd' and 'perfect' sat in exactly such a place.

He blushed.

However, the rushing of his blood wasn't enough to wash clean his worried mind. He recovered just enough so that he could ask, treading carefully, "You... don't want to spend time on the beach with everypony? With your... friends and-..." His final addition was almost too quiet to be heard, "... and with me?"

The confession woke Twilight up to something she knew in her heart she was too-conveniently forgetting about: her friends.

When their friendships got shaky they sometimes produced so much turbulence! Of course, it was normal for even the BEST of friends have rough patches. What was abnormally grueling here was that the sum total of these recent disturbances were creeping out of the darkness all at once; a terrible tornado of friendship troubles only because of the combined force of its one thousand individually-mischievous gusts! And so far the wearisome issues had remained a truly complex problem with no obvious or surefire solution.

Something that made her especially uneasy about the whole thing was the fact that James seemed very close to the center of it all. Logical in some senses: he was the newest element; the agent who had upset the established order and therefore had forced a rebalance. But it was also a dangerous thought: she didn't want to veer into believing that if she 'fixed' him then everything would 'go back to normal.' He was more than some wonky device that had to be troubleshooted! He was her FRIEND, no less valuable than the rest of them. To reduce him to simply 'the cause' would be a terrible slide backwards after all the painstaking effort it had already taken to have first broken real ground in friendship with him.

She didn't doubt that he had his part to play in everything that had gone wrong, but he wasn't the only wrong pony here, and likewise he would have to be part of making everything right. The man was a friend in need, just like her other friends. And what he needed was love and true friendship in order to overcome the current difficulties as well as his own personal issues.

That went for all of her friends in one way or another. Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash... Thank goodness Fluttershy at least was perfectly healthy and happy!

The unclad truth showcased itself before her: any idle wishes she had for a completely disconnected vacation were moot, as Gallowayo had been right to coincidentally point out. This wasn't the time to abandon her friends in favor of taking up new studies.

Yet without some definitive plan to act immediately on behalf of her faltering friends... how could she be anything but idle? But she had to at least stick around in order to keep an eye on everypony, should an opportune moment appear to do some good. Additionally the schedule that had been outlined for them by the islanders was there SPECIFICALLY so that everypony could begin to get into the groove of the mysterious experience which the island supposedly hosted. It would have shown poor appreciation if she were to have hid from it by disappearing into the pages of old records buried in some dusty chamber.

"O-Of course I'm not suggesting that I give up this nice vacation in order to study!" she wobbled in correcting her course. Playing the best spontaneous dealmaker she could she assembled a rapid alternative, "I just... don't think I'd enjoy swimming or playing on the beach as much as I would enjoy picking through this place's history. So... I thought maybe... I could do some studying while ON the beach. That is, sitting out in the sun while everypony else mingles around me. I-It wouldn't... REALLY be like I was excluding myself. A-And of course I wouldn't be close enough to the w-water to put your documents at risk, heh!"

Her effort was so dismally slapdash that even her barely masked frown tried to run off of her face in disgust, pulling her head to the side. She wasn't exactly fooling herself though; her spontaneous plan would have still basically isolated her from everypony. And Gallowayo had certainly seemed unhappy with the thought of her locking herself out of the whole island affair.

"And if-...," she took a chance with throwing him a line, "... if you haven't read any of the records yourself... and, I mean, if you're interested... I-... well, I wouldn't mind having a partner to look over them with me. Two heads are better than one."

Her bomb of a proposal had to fall from the sky before it finally burst and obliterated the stallion's dumbfounded stare.

"Oh-... OH! Oh, yes, of course! I-, I would-, I would love to!" It hardly seemed like he knew what to say, or what to do, or where to go. Everything spilled out of him in a ramble, "I'll-, I'll go ahead a grab a whole stack of papers, everything I can, and-, and... see you down there on the beach after breakfast!"

"Sounds great!" smiled Twilight, cooled by relief. Anticipation brought its tingling touch upon her also. The new plan really DID sound like a fun way to spend the morning.

"Okay! I-..." Gallowayo had been rendered positively ecstatic, near speechlessly so, by the whole affair. "... Ah... See-, see you later, then!"

"Okay! Until later!"

The stallion dashed away down the hall. His jubilant hooves clattered so loudly that even after he shot into the stairwell their clops could be heard vaulting down the steps.

Twilight used her magic to softly shut her room door. In the rush to question Gallowayo she had lost all of whatever-it-was she had been mentally organizing to prepare herself before she had to depart for breakfast. She'd have to get started again. But what a trifling thing to repeat.

Stepping about her room, pondering her readiness anew, she hummed a jumping melody out loud.

---

Lead together by a select few of their guides, namely Sweet Nothing, Nosedive, and Prism, all eight guests marched out the open doors of the Passion's Embrace. Their stomachs full, and their chattering full too, they followed their leads down the long and low steps which served as the building's glamorous approach. On either side of them the gardens passed, and then afterwards also the small shacks, stands, boardwalk, and the big stage.

Spike kept up with Rarity, balancing on his head a heavy bag with a few beach supplies of hers. He of course had glowing eyes for his adored mare but only glowering stares for Sweet Nothing who walked several steps ahead of them.

However, as the group wandered by the boardwalk that sat before the stage, the dragon came to an unexpected stop. So strange of a stop in fact that nopony else noticed he had fallen behind. The rest of his friends and their guides moved on apace, ever-busy amongst themselves as they trampled off the sandy dirt path and onto the beach itself. Spike stood alone, staring at one of the round tables on the boardwalk. Without breaking his gaze he slowly set down Rarity's weighty bag.

Summer Wind sat at the table, a cold and lonesome breakfast before her on a polished wooden plate. One of her hooves poked at the food purposelessly, and the other hoof held her glum face up by the cheek. There was a weak floppiness to her green mane, drooping to one side instead standing up like it was charged with electricity, and the sagging skin under her eyes had the weight of iron stones.

Such blatant contrast with how she had appeared only yesterday had been enough to have stopped Spike in his tracks. It was an oddity seeing a pony so big and strong suddenly appear so small and weak. Perhaps the explanation was as mundane as her not being a morning pony, but what an awfully nice morning for somepony to be looking so dreary.

The dragon crossed over the path and onto the boardwalk, leaving Rarity's bag behind.

"Hey! Morning, Summer Wind!" he unintentionally surprised her.

"Spike!"

She snapped awake solely at the sound of his voice, unable to see him at first. To actually confirm that he was there required a slight lean to one side so that the table no longer blocked his small frame. So unexpected was his appearance that even after catching sight of the friendly, waving dragon she still languished in a spell of doubt. However there was nothing about her weary face that hinted at him being either wanted or unwanted.

"Uh, sorry I... didn't wake you like I was supposed to," she said finally, groaning at herself. Her head wobbled from side to side after she gave a punitive, stirring slap to her cheek. "Just... ugh..."

"Oh, hey, no problem!" he assured her. Her crumpled posture and the weak crawl of her voice put some extra speed to his words. "Looks like I got up on time anyway, heh."

"Ah. Good."

Still she drifted along in a sort of weighty, tired funk. Some gloomy darkness had a cloud over her where there should have been a glow.

"Hey...," Spike made an uncertain approach. He had a single claw raised, pointing it up as if he were injecting himself thoughtfully into something that maybe wasn't his business. And he worried, "... is... everything alright?"

"What?"

There was more energy in that one word than all her prior mumblings combined, but it was still like she was straining to overcome her dour lethargy.

"There's-... there's no problem at all, Spi-"

Suddenly Summer Wind's own fumbling had her fed up. It wasn't just the shaking, stop-and-go blathering of her voice either; something in her body wouldn't quit being feeble and rickety. It had become so bad that out of pure reflexive impulse she had clamped her hooves onto the table to hold herself steady.

With all her might she brought her body to a hard stop, freezing everything. Then she sat up stiff, straightened and folded her wings behind her, and ejected every uncomfortable thing from her mind.

Seeming fresh, firm, and in control, she started anew, "Mister Spike, you don't have to-"

"I appreciate the 'mister,'" the dragon interrupted, a little flustered but mostly amused, "and anytime else I might get used to that, but right now... it really sounds kind of, like, too formal?"

His comment created a short space where she merely gawked in silence and he countered with a pensive stare back.

Finally she responded, once more restarting herself, "Miste-... ahem, Spike. There's no trouble. Just a late night, followed by a late morning. I'm still having my breakfast."

Yet, Spike noted, it certainly didn't look like she had been eating. And no wonder: her food had lost any fresh shine, and it was starting to grow rotten with loose grains of sand collected from the lightly drifting wind.

"I just sort of saw you sitting here alone when I came out," the dragon explained himself. A nervous tic nipped at him just above his tail and he reached back to rub away at it, hoping to quell it. But he didn't stop for the shaky disturbance, and his voice continued to emerge secure as he plowed along, "You didn't look that happy, so... I thought I'd make sure, is all."

Summer Wind blinked.

"'Make sure'... that I'm happy?"

"That you're alright," he casually clarified.

A shiver touched the pony. She turned her head aside, briefly looking over the beach.

Everywhere was bright with white sand basking in the warmth of the morning sun, and the crowd of guests and islanders tramped mirthfully with high steps to avoid digging long into the fresh heat. But as her gaze came back to herself she saw everything around her masked in a chilly shadow. The table, her breakfast, the stage, her otherwise-vibrant orange body; during morning the sun reigned from the other side of the Passion's Embrace, and the enormous shadow the building cast drowned her.

"Spike... have you-..."

Only in spurts could she look directly at him. To even speak about her innermost feelings she had to really grab hold of some lofty hope and pull herself up out of a reticent muck, and yet even so above she was heavily mired in restraint.

"... have you... ever, you know, done something that-... that you REALLY wanted to do, cause there was a part of it that you-... that you liked; that-... that you enjoyed a lot... o-or maybe e-even... k-kind of n-needed? And... I mean, you also thought that you had good reasons for doing it too... but-... but you-..."

The biggest bubble yet got caught in her throat, and it took a blind, frightful sort of courage to eventually push it out. But riding out after it came a sound so faintly wounded by despair.

"... I mean, you still kind of knew beforehoof that... you'd be disgusted with yourself for doing it? ... A-And you did anyway?"

Despite the difficulty in following her wandering words the dragon had gotten the gist of her question, though likely he wouldn't have had an easier time answering even if it had been delivered more coherently.

"... I... guess so?" he shrugged. Some memories of the past came to the fore, none of which he would have been pleased to share. Rather than dredge up embarrassing tales about himself he instead chose to offer her a vague summary of what had been learned afterwards, saying, "Maybe those times are just... sort of like the mistakes that we NEED to make, at least once?"

"Mistake...?" Summer Wind's eyes faded as she reflected inwards. "... Yeah... maybe..."

"I know in my case," Spike carried on, hoping a little more effort might make things better, "it was good that I had some friends around whenever something like that happened. They always help me figure everything out. And they never hold anything against me, or refuse to forgive me. Uh, as long as I can admit to my mistakes."

Her head held low, the pony gave a soft hum which was dry of contentment.

The dragon didn't pry further. But it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch her sit in that shadow. Even if he wanted to take no extra risks, it still wasn't right to do absolutely nothing.

"So... Summer Wind," he spoke up, layering a wish over his words, "are you going to have some fun on the beach with us?"

The pegasus' eyes burst open and she stared at him; him and his simple, shining, inviting smile.

"There's... no reason anymore... for- for me to...," the words fumbled out of her, trailing off as they did.

"What? What does that mean?"

"Well, I was supposed-... ah... But you're too young-..."

"SPIKE!"

The piercing call made both of them jump.

Rarity was heading towards them, having turned around after advancing onto the beach. Even with her eyes hidden behind a sporty pair of sunglasses it wasn't difficult to see how annoyed she was. She came to a stop just shy of the boardwalk.

"Spike, dearie," she chastised, "it's all well and good if you wish to stop for a chat, but please pass the bag off to somepony else BEFORE you do. Or at the very least TELL somepony that you'll be a minute instead of just disappearing without a word."

"O-Oh... I'm sorry, Rarity."

The dragon hung his head in shame, and his tail slumped down with a limp thud onto the wood.

Demanding still, some friendliness pooled by into Rarity's voice.

"I know," she quickly forgave him, "but I trusted you with that bag because I absolutely NEEDED it. After all, my towel is in it, and I can't just go sitting on the bare sand, now can I? My goodness, do you realize what a disaster that would be for my tail? Why, I'd need the rest of this vacation just to comb out every last messy grain!"

"R-Right, Rarity. I'm sorry," Spike apologized again. "I'll go get it right now-"

But he looked back to where he had left the bag only to discover that he had already lost his job to more eager competition.

Sweet Nothing had retrieved it, mounting the bag on his back. Towards the beach he wandered, prancing with a wide-enough curve that he shaved close to Rarity and the others. He dealt Spike a fast smirk, and to Summer Wind he leered a smug eye, but then he turned lastly to Rarity. For her he wore a polite and loyal face, adoring in every way.

But from Summer Wind's angle she saw the embers of his desire spritzing out from under the mask. The reveal to her almost felt intentional. He wanted his prior night's prize to know that he considered his next conquest a victory of more worth.

Passing by the unicorn, Sweet Nothing crooned honeyed words at her, "Your bag, my lady. I'll carry it for you."

"Ooooh, thank you," she cooed back, her knees wiggling.

The dark stallion began to make his way back across the sand, and his backside was a sight that Rarity had to strain to pull her smitten eyes away from.

"... Ah! Ah, yes," she awoke. "Marvelous view. O-Of t-the ocean."

Such was the lingering hypnotic power of the stallion's fine behind that she couldn't even feel the plump redness of her own flushed face. Nor did she seem to detect at all the fuming of her faithful dragon. Thin strings of angry smoke literally wormed out his nostrils.

"Well," she excused herself, turning to chase the siren's call, "that's taken care of, then. Feel free to finish at your leisure with your friend here, Spike. I'll see you down by the hunk—er, t-the water! Yes, the water! I'll see you down by THE WATER when you're done."

She left as well, her head copying the swings of Sweet Nothing's mesmerizing tail.

Spike groaned so hard that noise which passed over his reptilian vocal chords became a snarl. One claw he raised high so that he might take his frustration out on the air with a brutal slash, and one foot also so that he could deliver a frustrated pound to the boardwalk below. But swiftly the loud growl morphed into a whimper of self-disappointment, his falling claw rendered more of a sad slap against the wind than a slash, and his foot gave the boards only a tender and sorrowful tap. From head to tail his spine adopted a curl of defeat, and he started a slow, dejected trudge after his lovely mare.

But he wasn't so distraught as to have lost his manners completely.

"Hope you feel better, Summer Wind," he mentioned genuinely, if downcast.

"Spike."

"Hm?"

When he looked back at her he saw that she was staring out towards the beach; at Sweet Nothing and Rarity. Then she spared the dragon a studying look, observing most especially the heartbroken slump that had taken over his body.

"Spike... I'll, uh, finish my breakfast and... be right over, okay? Some time on the beach sounds like fun."

"Oh, that's great!" he said. His posture received a sudden push back up. "I'll see you over there."

She waved a short farewell and then he left after returning the gesture. There was enough lightness in his steps that his feet didn't terribly sink into the sand when he crossed off the boardwalk.

Summer Wind glanced down at her dry, plastic-looking food, the serving having long since adopted an unappetizing chill. Both her hooves she mounted on either side the plate, holding herself up from falling into the unwanted meal. Whatever strength she gave to her muzzle wasn't enough to actually get her to descend for a bite.

In hardly any time at all her hooves suddenly cupped the whole plate and lifted it up. Without a care she flung it like a frisbee towards the gardens, and as it spun it launched a spray of tasteless food about before it crashed somewhere in the bushes.

Out came her great wings, strong and purposed, and a single, powerful puff of them brought her up and above the boardwalk. She glided easily away from the morning shadow of the Passion's Embrace and over the sunny beach.

---

Flapping lazily, Rainbow Dash hovered over the sand as she thought about how to entertain her morning.

Certainly she didn't feel like napping. It had actually been a decent night's sleep, all things considered. Somepony had left a bunch of Wonderbolts merchandise and memorabilia in her room for some reason? Whatever. Anything good amongst the pile she had already owned, and everything else had seemed like Carriaggean knockoffs. Still, it had made her chamber somewhat more homely.

The ocean was available for a salty swim, but she had already splashed some laps in the pool on the boat just yesterday. Had utterly dominated her human friend in the process, too. Swimming didn't really call out to her at the moment.

Unfortunately it seemed like nopony else had any ideas different from those two. Everywhere she looked she saw ponies gearing up to either laze atop the sand or fight the waves. What a waste of a perfectly good beach. If anything was going to happen then it looked like she would need to be the big hero and start it up.

Thank Celestia at least one of the island ponies had thought ahead to drag out an extra load of beach-appropriate supplies, including the fun stuff. It all laid in a jumbled but organized pile. More useful items like towels, umbrellas, and coolers began on the left, and down the line more exciting items appeared: beach balls, buckets, sand shovels, and the like.

Drifting close she pored over the goods, and what immediately stood out to her were two tall posts which were laid partially crossed in the sand. Next to them was a long, thin net that had been not-so-neatly folded up before it had been hauled out and dumped there in a tangle. Never landing, the pegasus searched under the mess and was pumped to find an adequate ball.

Perfect!

"Excuse me, Miss Rainbow Dash? But are you perhaps interested in-"

Oh. It was that guy. The one with diving arrows for a cutie mark.

"Hey, bud," Rainbow Dash wasted no time stealing his assistance, asking, "could you untangle this thing and set it up for me? I got to fish for some players."

"Of course! Certainly!" replied Nosedive. He tried to squeeze himself in, "And I'd be more than happy to join-"

"Yeah, thanks for the help!"

She had already floated up and away by the time her distant gratitude fell down to him. The words trailed just behind the volleyball she had tossed down first. Back to the net it returned, landing with a plop.

A little height gave the pegasus a suitable view to survey the beach, investigating everypony available for potential candidates. There were her friends of course, and the three islanders that had lead them out to the beach. It also looked like most of the other guides were now present, some having beaten the guests there and others having arrived shortly afterwards, and there was also a smattering of extra, unknown islanders enjoying the morning with them to boot. The island masters, Venus and Vesuvius, weren't present though.

A sizable enough crowd to easily get some teams assembled! Yet there was one go-to pony that came to Rainbow Dash's mind first. It really felt like it had been a tragic forever since she and Applejack had done something FUN together, even disregarding the sour apple that the farm pony was sometimes.

Calm, serene, and unaware, Applejack was stretching out the corners of the towel she had just laid down. There was an idle-mindedness to each pull; she had every intention of relaxing her way through her vacation and already she had put her head in that restful place. Nearby she had planted an unopened umbrella in the sand, just in case the sun became too unfriendly.

First circling overhead like a vulture, Rainbow Dash breezed down in a confident swoop and bobbed up to her orange friend.

"Hey, Applejack! I bet-"

"Goin' swimmin'," the farm pony flatly declined, stamping out the response with a hasty boredom. She abandoned her nearly-complete job on the towel. Her hat she tossed away instantly, nailing a perfect ringer on the top of her umbrella, and then she pushed herself around the hovering pegasus. Waiting for nothing she trotted right into the waves as if she were walking to the mainland.

Rainbow Dash barely watched her go and then grunted. It figured; why had she bothered to give her friend a chance?

Flapping herself back up to an observational height she took another look about. Who were better choices?

James sat down on a towel he had borrowed from the resort, not having taken the careful time to have lain it nicely. He really only intended to sit there and enjoy the combination of sun and ocean for a little while anyway. It had been quite a few years since he had last been to a shore for the purpose of relaxation.

Around him he saw the others mostly seeking the same kind of leisure, in their own ways. Twilight had set herself down under the shade of a big umbrella and on top of an even bigger blanket, not some measly towel. One of the island stallions – paler green with very cobalt hair – had joined her, and he had brought along reams of paper; some in stacks, some in folders, some very crisp and old, and even a few tomes too. Elsewhere Rarity had sprawled herself over a towel in order to sunbathe. It almost appeared as if she had Spike, a very dark islander, and some huge, orange pegasus all attending to her. The man couldn't really tell why they were all clustered together. A bit further over was Fluttershy, though the ocean apparently didn't hold much interest for her. She was practically facing back towards the resort, trying hard to pick out signs of animal life in the bushes and trees surrounding the beach. Also she hadn't worn that pretty necklace of hers, but that didn't surprise him since she had probably figured that time on the beach wasn't appropriate for such a thing.

Yet James had brought his necklace. Just because. He yanked the vine to pull the medallion portion out from the loose confines of Rarity's bizarre summer-top. As ever the ruby-like crystals screamed with darkness because he didn't have a magic bone in his body. For a little while he left his gaze upon it, fiddling occasionally while he thought of Poppy...

... And of all the things that made LIVING better than mere existence...

The distinctive, ashy sound of sand being kicked through brought him back to the world. His still lowered eyes caught the legs of his visitor: lean, a coat of shining silver, several bracelets in an assortment of diverse colors...

"Ah, hey, uh," he nearly paused to allow his memory to work up her name but the answer leapt to him in the nick of time, "Prism."

The pony smiled comfortably. During his wake-up call he had seemed slightly groggy so that encounter hadn't lasted very long at all, and before that yesterday she had only gotten her name out once. That there had been enough of an impression for him to have remembered was a wonderful thing!

Her horn had a shining halo, white with brilliant color, and her humming magic carried a large but light beach bag through the air behind her.

"Good morning again! Do you mind if I set down here?"

"Oh, no, not at all," the man invited, gesturing to the sand besides him.

She accepted with a pleasant dip of a her body, a pony curtsey of sorts, and then she deposited her bag in the sand. A towel burning with her magic danced out, flattened itself in the air, and laid down for her. When she sat she curled her five-segment tail around her rump, using tiny tugs of her magic to make sure that the care she had taken in tying and braiding it had held. With her bag on the opposite side from the man there was nothing between guide and guest but an arm's length of sand.

Prism took no interest in the movements of the shore; not the lapping of the surf or the activities of the other ponies. She didn't pay any mind to the horizon still faintly colored with the last of the retreating dawnlight, or to other ponies' ambient conversations which vied for dominance with the chatter of the waves. As soon as she had sat down she had her head turned aside and her eyes awarded to the the man. She was bright, she was hopeful, she was open, and she hardly waited before engaging him.

"I hope everything went well with your... friend." The final word she tested quite carefully.

"What?" James questioned.

"Last evening. You asked me how to get to her room?" the pony reminded him. She pointed a quick glance at Fluttershy. "You were in quite an excited rush to find her."

"Ah," his uncertainty dispelled in an instant. "I just needed to return something to her, and to apologize."

"Apologize?"

"Earlier I opened my stupid mouth and said some stuff without thinking," he tried to breeze past any uncomfortably detailed explanation. "So, yeah. Actually I needed to apologize to everypony since they all heard it. I just went to her first because..." He brightened as he moved on to something which he didn't need to shadow. "... she's a really kind friend, and I knew I'd feel stronger when saying sorry to everypony else if I had her support first."

"Oh, that's why!" Prism said, soothed with odd, cheerful relief by the details. "It sounds like everything worked out then?"

"It did," the man acknowledged, showing it with a happy nod of his head.

"That's very good; I'm glad!" For a moment she reflected his joy back at him, but it softened when she decided to shyly admit, "I was... a little worried that you were more interested in-... well, that you were just being polite while dismissing me."

James twinged. He was especially sensitive now to his accidental or intentional messages because of the whole kerfuffle yesterday.

Alarmed by her confession he fell over himself to assure her, "Sorry about that! I didn't mean to give that impression!"

But the colorful pony had no trouble restoring herself, and she smiled, "No, I understand now!"

"Alright. Good, good," his sigh blended with a laugh.

After all, if he hadn't been so pressed to have fixed his mistakes then he wouldn't have minded spending some time with Prism yesterday. Hopefully he would have enjoyed it even. She had so far been incredibly receptive and open to him, eagerly so, and of course that made sense if she had been assigned to be some sort of concierge to him. But... the way she had been presenting herself felt beyond mere duty; somehow she wanted to be genuinely closer to him, and it wasn't like how any PONY had approached him before.

Though there hadn't been much of being approached by different ponies at all, come to think of it. Twilight and him, in their mutual ignorance, had formed a plan to handle his depression that had been composed exclusively of a step one: trade time between a handful of recently-made friends. And so the last few months in Ponyville had gone. It was a situation which was never going to change if he didn't take a chance to devise a step two.

"I mean, this is a vacation and everything," he was slow to speak up, almost walking like a sun-blinded man, "and I don't mind meeting new ponies. Like, that would be a fun way to relax and take it easy. I just couldn't yesterday cause... I had to take care of my friends first."

It was a disjointed addendum which nonetheless greatly pleased the pony. Her tail lifted and unwound from around her, it gave her towel a delighted pat as it came down again, and her glad cheeks took over her face as she revealed a small grin.

She made no reply other than that, and everything fell into a quiet peace which lasted through the breaking of a dozen waves before the stillness was stirred by the faint, electric buzz of moving magic. Prism's horn reached into her beach bag and found a bottle of sunscreen. A loud pop came from the cap flipping open while she floated the bottle up, but then she suddenly turned towards the man.

Bobbing the item a bit closer to him she asked, "Do you need some?"

James stared at the creamy orange bottle, amused by what was quite obviously a cartoonish depiction of an unready Princess Celestia being hastily covered over with a privacy sheet by a pair of pegasus maids. Hindsight informed him that he should have looked for sunscreen himself when he had grabbed a towel.

"Yes, please." He held out his palm.

The pony hid a frown thin with disappointment at seeing his open hand. Nonetheless pleasant, her magic flipped the bottle over and gave it a squeeze.

Thanking her, the man immediately shared the silken bounty between both his hands before he started coating his shoulders. One at a time he lifted the spaghetti straps of Rarity's top to get under them, however even having to get around the stupid shirt-thing at all made him too self-conscious of its very existence.

True that in some sense he wasn't a fashioned-minded enough person to care about what it looked like. Nor was he terribly worried about how others saw it; most ponies were silently polite enough to write off its ugliness as a foreigner's quirk. There wasn't even anything to be gained in disavowing it now: he'd already worn it in the open and it was the only apparel he had which wouldn't leave him sweating to death. But STILL he felt uncomfortably conspicuous in it, like the only child at a busy table who couldn't eat his dinner without getting it all over his face.

Well, he had a good excuse to be free of it now! From the bottom he lifted it up to peel it off. Poppy's medallion nearly came off with it, getting tangled up in the shirt as he pulled. He had to untwist the items before he was able to rip himself free of his ugly prison, and the inside-out top dangled from his fingertips by the straps before he dumped it onto his towel.

Automatically his hand grabbed the necklace next, seizing the medallion portion. As long as he was undressing his chest he was going to pull it off also. But once his mind caught up with what he was physically doing he jerked to a halt.

The necklace was a special gift. He didn't care about the stylishness of a heartfelt, generous gift!

Taking his hand away he left it on.

With a sigh almost born from immense relief the liberated man got himself back on track, checking his hands for sunscreen. There was still a good amount left, so he raised up one arm in order to start coating it. But no sooner had he clapped his hand around his bicep did he freeze, feeling consciously naked. He peeked to the side.

Prism had taken keen notice that he had removed his top. Her eyes were stuck on him, so thoroughly that everything else about her had stopped. Even the floating sunscreen bottle looked about to dangle free from her magic and drop. There was plenty of cool red in her multi-colored mane, but some of it now seemed to mix into the silver of her snout.

The sand shifted underneath her towel, introducing a lean into her. She tilted more and more towards him, perhaps so frozen that she was about to topple over. But it wasn't so. Her magic took firmer control of the sunscreen bottle in hopeful readiness, and one of her hooves picked itself up, trembling as it longed to reach out to him.

"Would you like some help covering your back?" she asked.

More she pushed towards him. The bottle started to tip over, ready to squeeze out sunscreen onto her hoof.

But he countered with a very sudden lean away.

"I-I'm alright," he blurted in an awful rush. To prove it he angled himself away from her and stretched a hand to his lower back, rubbing away. He heard her hum a helpless noise, and then there was the grainy shuffle of the sand as she pulled away from him and sat straight again. Meanwhile he kept himself turned aside and raced to get his back covered despite the thinning amount of sunscreen on his hands.

He had plenty of flexibility and reach with his arms; certainly more than enough to avoid such close, physical assistance by an unearthly creature like her. It would've been an awkward task anyway, with those hooves? It was easier for everypony if he just handled himself.

Handled himself in this matter, that is. With respect to the sunscreen.

Nopony could blame him for turning her down: he had plenty of desire to try and get acquainted with her but of course there were limits. Rubdowns from animal strangers were a bridge too far. And if she made similar approaches in the future – offers he found overly ripe with discomfort – then all he had to do was wade through them politely.

Just like how he had always handled Pinkie Pie and her unwanted zaniness.

Though... his miserable abilities of communication again... He hadn't shown his most polite face to Prism, had he? In fact his hasty rejection of her offer already stung him as a little cruel now. There was nothing wrong with a small amount of friendly assistance; he just didn't need any.

It-...

It was probably hard for a pony to really reach around and get their own backs? Their legs weren't built for that. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad... if he...

James twisted back towards her, his turn measured in slow steps.

"Do YOU need any help-"

The unicorn wasn't using her hooves at all, of course. Her horn commanded the sunscreen to spread itself over her, with ease reaching every last out-of-the-way spot.

"Hm?" She blinked with curiosity at his unfinished proposal.

"N-Nothing," he shied an inch away from her.

Her chest made the shrinking motion of a sigh though no sound came out, and she resumed working her magic.

For his part James behaved nearly the same, trying to return to coating himself. But unable to remember where he had left off he belatedly realized his hands had run too dry to continue anyway.

Choking down an ounce of surrender, but also finding enough absurdity to nearly snicker over the situation, he held a palm back out towards Prism.

"More, please?"

Cheerful again, she obliged.

In relative silence they individually finished protecting themselves from the incidental wrath of Princess Celestia, their only real exchanges during that time being the sharing of the sunscreen bottle. A quiet stillness reigned afterwards also: James with his averted eyes on the ocean or sand, and Prism with her swinging eyes often on him.

It wasn't bad company; not in the man's opinion anyway. It was simply... well... Just what does someone say to the charmed girl sitting next them when that girl is a-...?

So ridiculous how difficult it felt for him to start a casual dialogue with a stranger just because they were a-...

Bleh!

In order to jettison some of his asinine aggravation in a safe way he picked up his discarded top, squeezing and twisting it discreetly.

Prism surprised him by opening the conversation first, commenting, "That's a very interesting-looking piece of clothing."

"Heh... Not the words I'd use," the man found his reply easily, chuckling as he draped the rag over a knee, "but... it's the only thing I have that's suitable for such hot weather."

"Suitable?" Her fetching face wasn't used to hosting such contradictions. "If you're too warm shouldn't you just wear nothing at all?"

Her horn lit up. James didn't realize what she was doing until he felt the innocent tug on his skirt-shorts. Her magic had a loose hold on them, pulling only in demonstration of her suggestion, without any real threat to actually remove them.

Though her harmless intention didn't seem to stop her from leaning in for a closer look anyway.

"No!" the startled man grabbed his waistband, yanking it up higher than it needed to be.

His panicky jump startled her in turn, and she let go with her own guilty flinch backwards.

"Y-You see," James labored to explain in the most succinct way possible, "where I come from you-... you always wear at least one piece of clothing. Always!" But that assertion wasn't absolutely true! He worried she was going to ask intrusive questions if he left it sounding so oppressively unconditional. He weakly finished, "U-Unless you have some specific, good reason not to wear anything at all."

Lightly he pulled at the bottom of his ridiculous skirt-shorts to drag them back down to a more comfortable position, biting his tongue to keep any unnecessary self-rebukes from airing. What a dumb thing to have made a scene over. At least Prism only looked surprised, and not offended by his overreaction to her innocuous curiosity.

And the pony did only have an unhurt, thoughtful veil upon her face. She mulled over his unusual custom for a moment before she put forward the honest question, "Isn't being cool and comfortable a good reason?"

"I'm more comfortable with the pants on," he was overwhelmingly certain.

Taking in his answer and thinking on the matter some more only gave her a newer, more treacherous thought, "Technically you'd still be wearing that necklace if took your pants-"

"No, that's different!" the man objected, this time trying hard to hold in his sudden desperation.

Overeager to move on to something else – ANYTHING else – he crumpled the shirt into a ball and gave it a careless toss aside. It landed in the sand, almost out of reach.

"Forget the clothes," he told the listening pony. "I wear'em because they're the only thing I've got, not because I'm attached to them. They're just some crazy thing Rarity put together for me that would deal better with this heat since I didn't have any summer clothes, so they're more hers then mine."

At first the changing landscape of her face showed understanding, but then it suddenly didn't, and then just as quickly it did again. She oscillated several times. Whenever she reviewed his rambling in her head she discovered a new interpretation, his unclear objective and misapplied stresses having set down no obvious path.

"So these are made by... your dressmaker friend?" she finally asked.

"Yeah. So... I just leave her to do her thing and don't pretend to understand her supposed 'genius.' Whatever makes her happy and keeps me clothed," James shrugged.

"I've worn many kinds of apparel," the pony remarked, "but this one is definitely something... strange. If you don't mind my saying."

"No, I agree. Though it's also not her best work, for sure."

"Maybe I'm just not looking at it right; I haven't kept up with fashions while I've been out here, after all," Prism hardly lamented her loss, "but that necklace doesn't even match with-"

"Oh, it's not part of the ensemble," the man leapt to distinguish between Rarity's work and his valuable treasure. He tapped the darkened medallion, saying, "Rarity didn't put THIS together. This is something else."

Immediately the pony noticed the way he looked down at his necklace; the way he touched it with reverence. She had seen such tenderness before.

Her voice retreated into a removed hush, and she guessed, "A gift? From a special somepony?"

"From somepony special...," he distorted the echo, missing her clue. But his own interpretation instantly became the truth in his mind.

"Yeah," he smiled, "from a special squirt I met who really reminded me how special it is to be alive. And to keep living. And to keep loving."

A very happy understanding brushed away all of the unease which had covered the pony, and she exclaimed, "How adorable! And wonderful, too! You wear it to remind yourself of them? It sounds like you really value the relationships you build with other ponies, and give a lot in order to make them very, very special."

She sidled an inch closer to him as she bent down to get a closer look at his necklace, eventually raising an inquisitive hoof towards it.

Proud, the man held the medallion out for her. As her hoof drew in the crystals responded to her bodily magic, a brighter glow appearing and swirling with the darkness. She barely flinched from it, taken more by quaint intrigue, and after a moment more she sat back up satisfied. The crystals returned to the color of the man's void.

"So it's something more than a gift, then... A memento!" she said. "I understand that very well!"

Leaning back for balance Prism lifted her forelegs, holding them out to flaunt the many bracelets she wore. She also wiggled one of her hind legs too in order to highlight the single gray bracelet there.

"I was wondering about those," admitted James.

The meager things ponies wore often stuck out in his mind precisely because of the infrequency of pony clothing. In some ways it was also a bit of a conscious trick he had taught himself, because honestly it was hard to tell some ponies apart otherwise, if their coats and manes were similar colors.

"Gifts?" he asked, taking his turn to lean in and inspect her jewelry. Orange, red, yellow, violet, gray; the bracelets were solidly colored but each reflected light with a different kind of shine. They sparkled with feelings, none two the same. And at a count of five she had quite a few of these gifts, but then again why wouldn't such a pretty lady have received so many gifts?

The man shook his head as he pulled away.

"I mean, mementos?"

The memories warmed Prism, visible from cheek to chest.

"Mmm... yes."

"Of home?" the man offered an innocent guess.

"Oh, heh, no. I didn't start collecting them until I came here, to this island." She set down one of her raised legs, falling back into a more comfortable sitting position. The other leg stayed up, and she looked over her memento bracelets fondly. "Each one is to remember one of the pony's who I've made a special connection with while here."

"You've been making a lot of friends," James laughed.

His simple interpretation had her glittering with quiet amusement, but she said only, "More than that."

"So," the man's mouth curled with a ready joke, "what happens if you run out of leg space?"

"I hope it goes that far," her response didn't dally with an ounce of hesitation.

James fidgeted as he sat upright, struck by how seriously she had replied to his jest.

The pony continued, her speech running back and forth between hope and awe, "I hope this all spreads to Equestria; that they can all share what we share here. Then I can go back and collect the whole spectrum of mementos, from the most passionate reds to the softest blues. Each and every pony is so unique and so different. It's almost too incredible to think about... Just the thought of getting to experience them all..."

"I don't understand," the man gently interrupted. "How is making friends here any different from elsewhere?"

The silence that settled over Prism was thoughtfully brief but also unnaturally reserved. When she spoke again there was such an effort to give whatever she could; a battle for honesty to take the highest hill even if it wasn't strategically sound. But at the same time she cleared the field and tried to start fresh.

"I used to be a model, before I came here," she set the stage, reminiscing with clarity. "It required a lot of traveling around to the furthest reaches of Equestria, in order to wear the right outfit in the right place for the right photo shoot to promote the right thing. Just... so many different places to go to, all the time. It was nice work really; I liked it well enough. But what I loved most about the job WAS that it took me so many places. I got to meet so many different ponies, of all colors! I never bothered with how well the job paid since the real reward was all the chances it gave to interact with all the different ponies of Equestria!

"But," her sound changed, descending into something secretive yet wonderful, "for all those ponies I met... I never could have imagined what it was like to REALLY get to know somepony in such-... such an intensely personal way; to EXPERIENCE them. Not until I came here."

"If you traveled a lot," James suggested, "that probably made it hard to build any kind of connection to other ponies, you know? Maybe it was just settling down here that gave you the actual time to let new things grow familiar?"

She found no appeal in his thought, soundly and emotionally rejecting it, "No, no... it's... very FAST and POWERFUL, like nothing you've ever felt!"

Her own outburst startled her, and in forcing a calm upon herself one of her leftover thoughts strayed out in a half-mumble, "... After you've taken a bite..."

The man mostly ignored her fervent objection, short-lived as it had been anyway. The personal history she had divulged had been more interesting to hear, and he was happy not to follow up on talk of 'fast,' 'powerful' feelings with a pony; not when something calm and polite was available.

"So," he asked after she had been allowed a moment to breath, "what brought you here to begin with, then? Did Venus and Vesuvius hire you for some kind of promotional work?"

"Oh, not at all. I came on vacation. The modeling agency I worked for had gotten their hooves on a ticket somehow and I won the raffle."

Retrospective prosperity came upon the pony, and she continued, "Looking back, it was a real stroke of luck that I got the chance to be here. When my time was up I BEGGED Venus to let me stay. I even donated everything I had earned from my modeling job to the resort. Thankfully they decided to keep me."

"Woah," James remarked, "you gave up everything. Even all that 'traveling and meeting ponies' which you liked so much." He thought for a moment. "Would you say it's been worth it?"

"Yes, definitely," she resolved. Again she looked at the bracelets on her legs, "I still want to return to Equestria, but only after Equestria is ready to be a part of what happens here, so I can share it with everypony. I want to see this through."

Unsure of what exactly to think about what she had said he merely opted to comment, "That's some serious dedication."

"I've never been more passionate about something in my life." Her words were firm enough to have been written in stone.

And then she turned the thought around to him, carrying herself and her voice closer as she asked intently, "What makes you passionate?"

He was given no chance to answer the tricky question, cut off by a shout which descended from above.

"Yo! Barrel-a-monkeys!"

"'Sup, Rainbow Brite!" James greeted the flying interruption with plenty of welcome. "What can I do for you?"

Rainbow Dash hung in the air vertically, with her hind legs dangling and her forelegs crossed over her chest. If ever there were a destined champion of all things then she knew it was definitely her. From her mighty pedestal on high she let her glory trickle down, and she tossed the gauntlet at him.

"You got the horseshoes to step up to a round of volleyball?"

"Oh, is that what we're doing now?" The tone he took was familiar; falsely combative and perfect for ribbing his friend.

"That's what I'M doing," the pegasus gave equal banter right back. "You're free to join me if you think you can handle it. So... you in? Or you out?"

In waiting for his answer Rainbow Dash finally noticed Prism's presence, and that the man had been busy just sitting there while chatting her up. The pegasus snickered, "Either way, your butt's gonna leave a mark in the sand."

In a show of theatrical defiance he stood up, crossing his own arms but never losing his agreeable grin.

"Big words for a little pony."

"Alright!" the pegasus pumped her hoof. "Now just a few more players..."

James turned to Prism and gave her a bow full of polite regret.

"Sorry," he told her, "but it looks like I'm being drafted. It's going to be a long vacation though; we'll pick this later?"

"As soon as you'd like," she answered, pleased.

"Blah, blah," Rainbow Dash waved a disregarding hoof, and then she instructed the man, "ask her if she wants to play!"

Rolling his eyes at the blunt pegasus, the man relayed the offer to his guidepony in the form of a shrug. No need to repeat what had been so easily overheard.

Prism calmly nodded, "If you need an extra pony I will. But, if it's otherwise alright..."

Her eyes tapped the man's exposed chest for a moment.

"... I'd enjoy just watching."

Comments

[Jack Kellar]

So many baubles on Prism's legs... she really got around in this resort, huh?

Summer Wind, as always seems like a potential ally. Let's see if Spike charms (and Nothing irks) her into leaving the lust cult's side and her original "mission".

[Neildoc]

can we say "Lotus Eaters", kids?