• Published 2nd Dec 2012
  • 21,969 Views, 2,588 Comments

Xenophilia: Further tales. - TheQuietMan

  • ...
133
 2,588
 21,969

PreviousChapters Next
11: Please, please don't leave me - by VelvetHeart & The Quiet Man

Please, please don't leave me by VelvetHeart & The Quiet Man
Chapter published 1st Sept 2013

*********************


Clammy, soaked to the skin and more than a little cold, wet clothing clung to his frame like a second skin, one that squelched and seeped with his every movement. Water followed him into his home, dark droplets staining the rugs and floorboards both like a trail of breadcrumbs, marking a curving path to the bathroom where the tub awaited him; the promise of warming his bones and soothing his aching muscles with a nice long, hot soak spurring him onward.

As he crossed the threshold from hallway to bathroom, he let his sodden shirt slide from his back, the fabric hitting the floor with a resounding ‘splat. He knew that by now his body temperature was beginning to drop, the chill factor of the lake water trapped against his skin more than his own body could compensate for, a surefire path to the sniffles if left untreated much longer.

A shiny tap stood with its twin at the end of the bath ready to dispense a flood of hot water, its polished metal surface gleaming awaiting his touch, his hand already reaching for it - and landing just short. Something was tugging on his other hand. Something insistent.

A pair of eyes, large and shiny, met his as he turned, their surface reflecting twin visions of the tall human back at him. This pair of glimmering globes held relief, agitation, nervousness... and maybe a touch of fear Three of his fingers were caught in the pegasus’ mouth, her lips holding them gently though her grip was still tight against his knuckles.

Seated beside him, looking up at Lero like a betrayed puppy, Rainbow Dash finally let go of his fingers, the biped’s hand falling to his side as his herdmate turned away from him, hiding her eyes from view..

“Don’t leave me again.”

“It’s only a bath. I won’t even...”

Lero stopped, then sighed as he took in the back of his mare’s head, the downcast position of her ears, the barely imperceptible trembling of her shoulders.

“Will it make you feel better if you stay right here?”

After a moment Rainbow Dash nodded, her face still turned away from her stallion.

Taps were turned and clothes fell to the floor, each garment hitting the floor with a somewhat waterlogged splat, and soon the only human in Equestria slid his tired body into the heated water with a groan of relief. Moments later, a familiar pegasus clambered into the extra large tub, standing over the human, the vibrant blue of her coat reflected back at her from the water barely reaching her belly. Lero lay a hand on the side of her barrel, face-to-face with his lover’s intent stare.

“Rainbow, the water’s not going to swallow me or... you’re trembling. Ssshh. Don’t worry. Lay down. You just had a bit of a shock, that’s all. You’re coming down from the adrenaline.”

Slowly, he coaxed her to fold her legs and let herself sink deeper into the bath, resting her head on his chest as his fingers slowly trailed down her spine, avoiding the more sensitive spots.

“Was it really that scary?”

A small nod was the only warning before the tears came. No great drama, no waterfalls, just a short, harsh release of pent-up fear that faded as her stallion’s fingers gently caressed the skin under her mane.

“Better?”

Another nod, followed by a soft ‘thump’ as the mare suddenly rammed her forehead against Lero’s shoulder. There was no real anger behind the contact, the collision causing no pain to either party. But the pegasus wanted her stallion’s attention, wanted him to know how strongly she felt about his actions, how scared she’d been by the possibility of losing him.

“You should’ve told us you could swim! I thought I’d lost you! I... You...”

“Sorry! I’m sorry. Really, I am. I didn’t realise being able to swimming was so uncommon among ponies. It’s pretty much the norm where I come from. Teaching young children the basics of swimming is mandatory in many places. I guess Ponyville wasAHH!”

Interrupted mid-sentence, Lero jerked back against the bathtub’s wall, sending a small wave of water over the edge and onto the floor as Twilight Sparkle’s face suddenly appeared next to him.

“You can learn to swim?”

It was Twilight’s question, but there were two expectant gazes aimed at the startled human.

“Well, yes. I mean, how else do you-”

“Raw, innate talent. Deepwater fishers, pearldivers, rescue ponies, it’s often considered to be part and parcel of a pony’s special talent, but that doesn’t quite fit the numbers. More than a few with completely unrelated talents can swim. Pinkie Pie, for instance. It’s still relatively uncommon among ponies. But, more importantly, humans can learn to swim? From what?”

Twilight Sparkle leaned in further still, forehooves on the edge of the tub. Her expression held the same look of concern that her herdsister had held moments before, but it was also coloured by an edge of excitement. The thrill of discovery, the joy of learning. A chance for further education had presented itself and she was not a mare to let something like this pass her by.

“Other humans, actually. Humans don’t just learn to swim, they can teach it too.”

“So does that meaHmmMmfff!”

“Teach me.”

Rainbow Dash leant her chest further into Lero’s as she made her demand, making sure the stallion’s full attention was on her before she took her hoof out of her herdmate’s mouth.

“I... well, you know. And we could swim together.”

After a moment’s thought, she added,

“Is it possible to have sex while swimming?”

Lero laid his head back on the edge of the tub for a moment, eyes on the ceiling as he pondered the logistics... of both requests.

“We could try. Ehm, the teaching, I mean. I know the basics, and Pinkie Pie could probably show me the major differences between our swimming styles. I’m surprised you don’t have something like this for the little fillies and colts already.”

The pegasus was puzzled. What would schoolkids have to do with this?

“What do you mean, for the little foals? Why would they need to swim? They’re not going to-”

Twilight Sparkle interrupted her herdmate, the unicorn’s ears suddenly flagging.

“Remember Butterball?”

“Oh.”

Lero’s eyes moved from mare to mare, the sadness in their own eyes told him all he needed to know.

“One of the kids get in too deep?”

Rainbow pushed herself back against his chest, her chin resting against the side of his neck.

“Yeah. You know Button? Butterball was his twin. A couple’a years ago they were playing out by one of the dams outside’a town and fell in. When the beavers found them only Button was still breathing and by the time they’d managed to find Fluttershy and bring her all the way to the dam it was just too late.”

Reaching up with one hand, Lero rubbed behind Rainbow’s ear while, with the other, he stroked at the back of Twilight’s mane. The purple unicorn pushed against her stallion’s hand, letting his fingers move behind her ear as she spoke.

“I’d not long arrived from Canterlot myself so I was still just getting to know everyone. I didn't really understand why Fluttershy had locked herself away all of a sudden, I didn’t realise how much she’d blamed herself. She can swim, it’s part of her skill with animals, even waterbound ones, but she’s not very strong you see. She’d convinced herself that if she could have flown there faster, and then swam the last of the way to them more quickly, she could have somehow saved them both.”

Rainbow’s ear suddenly pricked up, her head rising from her stallions neck to look him in the eye.

“You could teach me. I’m totally the fastest flyer in town. If I knew how to swim then if anypony got into trouble I could fly there and save them.”

“You mean like a lifeguard or the maybe the Coast Guard?”

“Coast Guard?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t Equestria have teams of Coast Guard posted along the coasts to help swimmers or sailors that get into trouble.”

“No, not really. Like Twi said, not many of us can swim so trips to the beach don’t usually include a whole lot of swimming. The Border Patrol has a bunch of ponies that can, and any floating cities like Vortex or Hurricane that spend a lot of time out over the ocean have Lifeguards on duty to to escort flocks of visitors.”

“What about the Wonderbolts? Surely they must know how to swim, being on call for rescue missions and stuff?”

“Oh wow. I never thought of that. If I could swim that’d make my application look like twenty... no, thirty percent cooler.”

The pegasus lifted a forehoof and held it aloft, moving it slowly from left to right as if imagining her name in lights on one of Manehatten’s Broadway theatres.

“I can just see it now... ‘Rainbow Dash - Rescue Pony’... that would be so awesome.”

As her herdsister was caught up in visions of her glorious future, with grateful stallions throwing themselves at her hooves and young fillies wishing that they could grow up to be just like their hero, Twilight rejoined the conversation.

“You said humans teach their children how to swim, maybe you could do that here? It’d mean there’d be less chance of young ponies getting into trouble and needing rescuing in the first place.”

Behind the unicorn’s ear, Lero’s fingers ceased their movements as his brain worked though what his mare was suggesting.

“Twi, that’s a great idea. We’d need to get their parents to agree, and get a few adult ponies that can swim to act as assistants or lifeguards, but it could really do the kids a lot of good. Swimming’s fantastic exercise for the whole body, and it’s a lot of fun. Do you think we could make it happen.”

Twilight rubbed at her chin with a forehoof, a habit she’d always had but, as it was also one of her stallion’s habits, she’d found herself doing more and more in recent times.

“Well, if we could get Cheerilee and Mayor Mare on board that’d give the idea more weight. Then if we could get some of the more influential parents like Filthy Rich behind us the others would be easy to convince.”

By this point, Rainbow had lifted herself out of the water, streams of warm liquid running off of her fur and back into the bathwater beneath her.

“Filthy’ll be a pushover. He dotes on that brat of his so all we have to do is convince him it'll be for her own good, throw in some scare stories about how easy it is for young fillies to drown, especially if they’re always wearing silly heavy jewelry, and bang, he’ll sign up straight away.”

Twilight nodded sagely at her herdmate’s suggestion even though she wasn’t too sure about the ‘scare stories’ part.

“That’s true, Rainbow. Plus I’d think that Derpy and Berry Punch will both get behind the idea if we explain it to them. They can both be really quite protective of their girls and anything that can help them stay safe will appeal to their maternal instincts. Button’s mom might be a hard sell though, what with losing one foal already. She wouldn’t let Button out of the house for almost a year after that. But if we could convince her it’d go a long way with the other parents.”

Rainbow tried rubbing her forehoof against her chin. It just didn’t look as impressive when she did it. It also didn't help that the act of pulling a forehoof out of the bathwater had managed to splash both of her herdmates.

“I got a plan for that. Pinkie was telling me about what the kid’s been like whenever he’s at Sugarcube Corner. If we can get both Rarity and Sweetie Belle on board and then send’em over to his mom’s house to talk up the idea, Button will get so overexcited about the whole thing that she’ll probably end up saying yes just to get him out from under her hooves for a while.”

Lero and Twilight - the front of unicorn’s mane still dripping from her sudden soaking - shared a quick glance. Their pegasus herdmate could be quite devious when she wanted to be... and right now, it looked like she really wanted to be.

“And I can work on Applejack while the big guy here works on Big Mac. Between us I reckon we can get the Apples signed up, no problem. I don’t know about Scoot’s mom but if we’ve already got Berry Punch on our side by that point then Quickfix wouldn’t be far behind. And once we’ve got all three Cutie Mark Crusaders they’ll probably find a way to get the rest of the kids involved all on their own.”

Reaching out, Lero took his pegasus herdmate’s hoof in his hand and gently pulled it away from her chin. The ‘long-past-just-devious’ aura she was giving off was starting to weird him out. Give her another twenty minutes and he was worried she’d be putting on a strange accent and start demanding that their herd be kitted out with sharks with laser beams on their heads or something.

“There’s something you’re forgetting, hun. Not only do we not have enough adults that can swim to keep a whole bunch of students safe in the water, but much of the town still doesn’t trust me and certainly wouldn’t trust me with their kids. I’m still that big scary meat eater to a lot of them and that probably won’t change anytime soon.”

While it did knock some of the wind out of Rainbow’s sails, Lero’s (sadly true) comment just made Twilight hop up and down with excitement, which caused her two herdmates to laugh out loud at the sight of a grown mare bouncing up and down like an excited filly.

“No, no, it’s perfect. You can start off by teaching some of the adults that already trust you, like me and Rainbow and the girls, and Lyra, I know she’d be interested, and Lyra’s housemate and your friends like Big Mac and Time Turner-”

“Twi, calm down, you’re running out of air.”

“What? Sorry, yes. What I mean is, if you teach a group of adults first and they see how useful it could be, word will spread to other adults, and then once you teach them too they’ll see how useful it is and tell others. Then from there we move onto the foals and get the adults you’ve already taught to help out. Like all the best ideas, once ponies see how great it is word will spread on its own and, as a side effect, if ponies think that it was all because of you then part of their natural herding instinct will kick in and they’ll start seeing you more as somepony they can trust, especially after what you did for Honeybee today. And then if it all works out for Ponyville we could show Princess Celestia and maybe even get other towns to start doing something similar!”

As her herdsister had been talking up a storm, Rainbow’s jaw had been dropping further and further.

“That. Would. Be. AWESOME!”

Reaching out again, but this time towards his unicorn herdmate, Lero pushed Twilight’s sodden fringe away from her forehead and planted a soft kiss between her eyebrows.

“Twilight, you're a genius.”

At this the librarian’s cheeks flushed. She knew she was smart - it was something she’d worked tirelessly on her whole life after all - but whenever her stallion complimented her on her intelligence then it still made her blush like a teenage schoolfilly with a crush.

“I... erm, thank you. Should I go see if Lyra’s filed her report yet so she can help me can find Pinkie Pie? If we can get their input first then we could probably start talking to other ponies about it after lunoohh.”

As Lero continued to trail soft kisses up across her forehead, each one getting closer and closer to the base of her horn, the unicorn's eyes started to cross as her horn began to glow.

“Or, of coursemmmmmh. Weoohhh, could always wait until tomorraaaahh.”

After pushing the bathroom door closed behind her with a hind leg, Twilight climbed into the large tub with her two herdmates, pushing warm water all over the floor as they moved around each other.

Rainbow was probably going to be late for her meeting with the south sector weather crew, but for some reason she just couldn’t bring herself to care. The rest of the morning was spent attempting to answer the question “can a pony and a human have sex whilst in water?”. And it would seem that the answer was very much in the affirmative. Though that didn’t stop the three of them from testing the results many times.

Many, many times.

Author's Note:

The Quiet Man: I do so love a collaboration. This one's only a short one but it sets up a later chapter nicely. Thanks go to VelvetHeart, complaints (as always) come to me.

But the main question is... What is the first rule of Swim Club?

PreviousChapters Next